Untitled
The Release
Today I am cutting myself open with just a laptop and my fingers.
I say this with the hope that it will finally happen instead of implying that I have the actual conviction of putting it into action. It’s a more difficult process than one would think. Writer’s block is real and I believe until you’ve experienced it, like most things, you don’t realize how much it’ll drive you mad. I would compare it to those weird ticklings that hide somewhere under your skin, almost like your muscles need scratched. Or, as I think about it more, it’s similar to knowing you should be doing something but you can’t recall what. Even now it’s at me, some memory or thought wanting to be created but not bubbling to the surface to join the rest of the world. Maddening, simply maddening. Anyway, I know I’ll go on rambling in these paragraphs if I don’t stop myself now. For the sake of lessening my boredom and creating when I don’t seem to remember how, this will all be the way I want it to be and the way I feel it should be written. Let’s see what happens.
Honesty is not a lesson that everybody learns, and those who have that advantage often grasp that quite quickly. The first person I loved outside of my family was someone who hadn’t been granted that chance. Because nothing was given to them, everything was taken out of their hands.
They found him abandoned in the middle of nowhere, hidden in a trailer owned by his parents. It was a group of teenagers – meaning to cause more harm than aid on the ugly structure they happened upon while wandering through the woods – that saved him. They opened the trailer door onto a mess of the mother and father, long dead from the relief they’d stuck in their veins. He was locked in a closet-sized room the police found in the back end, no bed or its sheets to speak of. Just an old bean-bag chair with the beads falling out and some dirty blankets. He’d been living off a bag of oyster crackers and sheer will. I’ll spare you the rest of the ugly details.
As they took him out of that hole at seven years old, he didn’t fight and didn’t look back at the two bodies that had brought him into the world. They told me he struggled to walk out the front door but looked at the outside with something like disgust. The cop I spoke to said, knowing how the boy turned out in later years by the time we met, that it was like he knew all was ruined. Everything that was ahead of him would be affected by what was behind and he couldn’t stop it, or maybe while he was trying to survive locked up in that room some part of him had already given up.
Either way, he was rude to me.
Well…
Sunday was always the day of dinners and church. Whether you believed in god or not and if you liked what was being cooked or you didn’t. Everyone would be in the sanctuary at eight o’clock and meet at whoever’s house was available that weekend by one. All of this was done by everyone from the great grandparents down to the newest addition, my one-year old nephew, and all dressed to impress. There were a lot of Chapmans. So much so that we had our own section in the pews. I’d even once heard talk of labeling the three in the middle right to save confusion for those who were new to the congregation. That never came to fruition. But this one particular Sunday – a Sunday that brought Anna Reeve along with us because her mother thought she could use the lesson the holy spirit would bring – I was late to the sacred dinner.
Anna - being a Reeve and not a Chapman - did not have a section in the pews. She was pushed back and would have been alone if my mother didn’t take pity on her. I was forced out to the newbie seats as well moments later, far from the comfort I’d found in peacefully distracting the nephew close to tears in his mother’s arms. I needed to make sure our friend was absorbing the full effect of the father’s words. She was not. Something distracted Anna, making her chew her spearmint gum like her mouth was the motor trying to power the thoughts in her head, but I didn’t find out what it was until the service was over and she asked me for a ride home.
“I was supposed to meet someone, you know.”
“Really?” I asked, unconcerned and checking my rearview for the red ford truck that was driving a little too close.
“Yep, and that’s why my mom sent me with all of you. No better place to be than with the Chapmans alongside Jesus.”
Her gum was still sending out waves of mint through the tiny car somehow after being chewed all morning long. I wondered why she wore that particular dress that day because it looked like a summer sun type and not the middle of autumn kind. If it were me, I’d have at least worn a jacket but her bare shoulders slouched against the grey fabric of the seat, relaxed. ‘Maybe she runs hot,’ I thought absentmindedly trying to remember what she said last.
Just to pass the time I asked, “Who were you meeting then?”
“A guy.”
Of course, she was.
“I’ve been talking to him for a while now and we were going to meet for the first time today. Mom found out when Daisy borrowed my phone, saw one of the messages, and wanted to know what was on the street he picked for us to meet at. I tried to lie but everybody knows who he is. His name was all over the papers when we were little. She went off then.”
Anna stared off out the window with her first two fingers running down the edge of one of the ruffle seams on her dress, bright orange like the flowers on the print. I had a guess who it could be and thought her mom made the right decision. It was just one less questionable choice out of the mass of them that Anna would make in her life but it was still good. She might’ve been able to handle many things. I don’t think he would’ve been one of them.
I was about to ask her what she was going to do about it, even though I already knew, and thought better of it. I might be sitting in this car for another hour more if she was nudged off into a tangent and I really didn’t want to experience that again if I didn’t have to. We had been shoved together many times during our childhood all because our parents happened to know and like each other when they were young. It was funny how easily we came back together each time like, ‘Oh it’s you again. Alright, let’s force these entirely unmatched puzzle pieces together until we can leave.’
My green, dusty Escort pulled up by the walk in front of Anna’s house. They didn’t have a garage or even a drive and I always noticed how much smaller the actual home was when compared to ours. But unlike the Chapmans, her family was relatively new to this part of the country and had to buy that house on their own instead of taking what was handed down to them. Our home and the homes of several of my uncles and grandparents were built when people used horses to get to and from church. It fit most of our branches, seeing as many of them still decided to reproduce as though they were rabbits, but to my immediate family it was a lot of silence and empty rooms, especially since Grant had married and moved. It wasn’t all that much quieter when I really thought about it. Because of the distance in our ages, there were many times when I was alone – mom and dad working and my brother finishing school hundreds of miles away. Now that he really was gone, I was mostly on my own but I saw this as more of an advantage than it was; I’d know how to adult better than most when the time came.
“I think I’ll need a ride next Sunday,” Anna said, stepping out.
“Your mom’s making you go twice?”
“She’s making me go until the end of eternity or at least until I see ‘the error of my ways’.”
She rolled her eyes as though flirting with a complete stranger and then agreeing to meet on her own was the greatest shot she would have at finding love. I almost said something in agreement with her parents but instead told her to be ready at seven thirty and let her slam the door shut. The smell of pine from the air freshener was more welcome than the gum scent when it no longer had that competition. Like a good acquaintance I waited until she was unlocking the door to drive off. I didn’t particularly like her but I would feel bad if she was stuck outside and the mystery date happened to find out where she lived.
-
-
-
Sunday dinners were a good deal louder and wilder than the mornings. Those little bits of the family that were naturally creatures of noise could let it out without the echo of chapel walls. If you wanted to laugh at a crude joke, you laughed and when someone couldn’t hear what you said, instead of passing on the word with the hope it wouldn’t get jumbled down the way, you shouted across the house louder. This was especially so at my Grandpa Chapman’s house because not only did he have the most booming voice but the best cook, Grandma Chapman, to shout about how good her food was. So, when I arrived late, I really received an ear-full.
“Where’ve you been? I’m starving and no one wanted to start until you got back. Are you trying to torture an old man with all this good food laying around,” he half bellowed as I shook my black flats off my toes.
In seconds I was in a British Sterling flavored hug with one arm still in the sleeve of my jacket. After I was properly mussed, hair in a cloud that used to be brown curls, I wriggled away to fix his handiwork.
“Our guest had to get home somehow,” I called while running off to the closest bathroom by the stairs.
It was locked with someone mumbling ‘go aways’ inside. I huffed and headed up the stairs assuming there would be another person in this one and passing two people I had very different opinions about: my sister-in-law and her twisted, little, pink-glossed mouth and my chubby cheeked nephew in her arms ready for a hug but only receiving a small version of what gramps gave to me from my hand.
I looked a lot worse than I’d thought when I found a mirror. That man was fast at his work. With a few swipes from his huge hand my hair went from average curling iron curls to practically how it looked when I woke up that morning…and I was a fussy sleeper.
“What do I even do about this?”
I gave up after a good try with the brush I found in the medicine cabinet. When I went back down the stairs a few minutes later it was all tied in a bun on the top of my head and more than a few people I passed took their chance at grabbing it like a knob. It was to be expected in this house just as the complaints that came again about waiting to eat because of me.
Stepping into the crowded living room where most everyone was or could hear me, I called, “The queen has arrived, you may all feast.”
Someone threw a pillow in my face, knocking my hair askew and everyone else ran past me to the dining room.
“Peasants,” I growled.
“Did Anna enjoy the service?” my mom asked, coming from the kitchen with a handful of forks.
“That depends on what you mean. Does she feel some abrupt spiritual shift? I think not. She is adamant about some other things, however.”
“Well with all that trouble and that boy she was talking about I agreed with Joan’s choice. I know it’s done you and your brother some good, at least with the responsibility of it.”
I had some stories to tell her to the contrary but decided not to betray her high placed opinion of her children. Since my mother was nowhere near a rambler like Anna was and I actually enjoyed any conversation between us I decided to ask something and see if I’d been right.
“Do you know who it was?”
“Who what was dear,” she said, being attacked by the vultures at the table wanting the utensils.
“The boy she was meeting. She told me he was in the newspapers when we were little and I could only think of one person who that might be.”
“Oh, you’re probably right. It was that one…you know the one they found half-starved and he’s been in and out of all kinds of places ever since. I don’t know what he’s doing here again. No one seemed to want him before.”
“Harsh, mom.”
“What I meant was he kept switching families and acting like a heathen. He’s a couple years older than you I think but you must remember all the trouble he got into.”
I barely did, being someone who generally worried about what I needed to do and not what other people decided to do unless it affected me. The last I had heard about it at that point was that he was sent to a juvenile detention center until he aged out but that had to have been more than two years before. I could see what brought him back though. Anna Reeve was known to be chased after by many not only around town but several counties over. It wasn’t a surprise that the two had come in contact but it wouldn’t lead to anything because her mother was crazy about keeping track of all that she did. The whole thing would blow over in no time…unless he was the rare persistent one who actually cared about who Anna was and not how she looked.
“You better grab something before it’s all gone. I think dad’s trying to eat the table,” mom said, catching my attention and staring at grandpa with a huge pile of roast slices and mashed potatoes on his plate.
“Yeah, I don’t know. He might bite my fingers off.”
Do I Know Reggie Chapman?
“Reggie, who is that?”
I turned from the jacks, sitting half on the pavement walk of the back porch with my cousin Hannah, to where she was pointing. Grandpa’s backyard was a huge section that took up two lots, had several massive evergreens with low hung branches, and was fenced in with a sturdy metal kind of closely placed bars. They weren’t very high though so you could always see whatever through them to either of the smaller homes on both sides or the road to the back. That spot, where the cars were always passing by without realizing what was beyond the fence, was where a figure stood facing us. It was too far to see their face under the shadows of the huge trees. All I knew was that it was a man and that their hands were in the pockets of their jacket. After a few seconds of us staring at him and him watching us, he raised his hand with what looked like a beckoning motion. Now, I knew I might go over there knowing that Mr. Fairer was just to the right checking his garden like he did at that time most days, but I wasn’t going to bring Hannah with me.
“What’s he doing?” she asked with a giggle.
The way he was waving his hand - quick and impatient - did look kind of odd. I could see where a kid might find it funny, but with someone older it would cause worry not knowing what they were after.
“Go on inside, okay? If you see Daniel tell him I need him out here.”
She didn’t hesitate and I knew she would go looking for him instead of waiting for them to run into each other. Hannah was in that stage of wanting to solve mysteries and grab at any kind of hunting game. Daniel was her brother, less than a year older than me and getting ready to be shipped off to the finest college money could buy next fall. Asking for an actual adult to come out here because of a stranger at the fence would only cause a lot of ruckus and I wanted to see who it was. Daniel wouldn’t stress to see why I called for him and just wander back when he got the chance, giving me time to question whoever this was. I guess when you’re alone a lot you’ll find any occurrence interesting.
I stood up and dusted little pebbles and dirt off my pant legs, grabbing the flat as it fell from my foot and shoving it on before walking back. They held me steady in their gaze as I made my way over, not jerking their head left or right to see who was around. I didn’t know how I felt about that, other than hoping I was right in thinking they probably weren’t under the influence of a needle or a pill. I was under the shade of the tired looking trees when I could see who it was and almost turned back after freezing for a moment in surprise. I hadn’t seen him in years and even then, it was only glimpses in passing. I knew the name but only shaped by the mouths of others. Still, he had been the subject of much conversation today.
There was a clear hardness to his face, maybe a little more visible than I remembered. His coat was somewhat rough with tears and frays all over in the brown fabric that reminded me of corduroy. It was no more disheveled than the rest of him; scruffy, unshaved cheeks and hair that probably was meant to look strategically messy and instead came off to me as needing brushed. I couldn’t tell just yet whether he lived up to his reputation but I was ready to see.
“Can I help you?”
“Reggie Chapman. You know her?”
I almost laughed, considering we had been in the same halls for at least part of two years and he didn’t recognize me at all.
“Yeah. Do you need something from her?”
“Tell her to mind her damn business, that’s what I need.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell her Anna Reeve’s decisions don’t belong to her.” He turned quickly away but back again like he’d just remembered something even better to say and didn’t want to miss the opportunity. “And to stop spewing shit into her parents’ ears.”
I could feel the blood traveling upward, pooling in the skin of my face and leaving my feet icy and numb. I was somewhere between flabbergasted and furious.
“I don’t know what the hell you’ve heard, but the only thing I have to do with Anna Reeve is that I drove her home from church this morning.”
He looked slightly surprised, realizing it was actually me he was accusing.
“Exactly. You put that stupid idea into their heads and now she’s gonna be stuck in all of this until god-knows-when. Why do all of you,” he waved his hand toward the house behind me, “think you can push everyone around and judge what’s right and wrong and who’s shit and who’s not? Just because people make mistakes doesn’t mean they’re total fuck-ups.”
“And by people you mean you? So, you’re saying you’re a nice guy and good deep down. You think Anna would be lucky to have you?”
His face twitched for a second. It seemed like the last thing he’d expected was for me to throw something right back at him. He’d thought it would be easy to come here and intimidate.
“I never said a word about church to the Reeves and honestly, I haven’t spoken to any of them in weeks other than today with Anna. I don’t really care what she does with her life. We’re not even friends, but I can’t change that her parents want her to make some of the choices I do. I would probably say the same going by her record so far if I had even said anything, which I hadn’t. Maybe you should too, seeing as you’ve been around the block a few times yourself. What was it? Juvie four times and then jail as soon as that was over with? I think it’s time to take a step back and realize something. Perhaps you are a fuck-up.”
His face was blazing red by now and eerily still. Usually, or at least up until that point, I was the least angered person I knew, but no one had ever come and said to my face how low their view of my entire family was. Running over it again in my mind was just pissing me off more. I couldn’t even pay attention to what I was seeing and when Daniel’s steps roused me, I realized I was crushing my thumbs inside my pockets. My eyes flicked to a chipped bit of paint in the fence to the left of me as if not looking directly across might calm me down.
“Hannah said you needed me,” he mumbled before looking up from the needles and seeing my flustered face, “what’s going on?”
He looked between me and Ian Wright, the accuser, gauging the situation and seeing it wasn’t a positive one. Daniel wouldn’t have known who this was; he went to a high school in the county over, where they wore uniforms and paid tuition. Realizing that made me angry in some way, like acknowledging that Ian was partly right about the way we were. But still, it didn’t give him the right to imply we were bad people.
I looked up at the other over the fence. He was clearly still fuming, one fist clenched at his side but just to spite him I was going to prevent more trouble coming his way. Daniel glanced at me for an answer, starting to look a little concerned.
“Nothing. We were just arguing over a screw-up at school,” I explained, trying to shake off steam.
Daniel wasn’t a hard person to convince because he genuinely didn’t care about most things until they were serious. He floated along on life until he saw someone falling from a ladder or getting mugged, helped, and then skipped right on like the day never changed. That was beginning to bother me as well.
“Alright…what did you want?” he asked with a side glare at Ian.
“Just…wanted to say hi. I hadn’t seen you yet today,” I lied lamely.
Even Ian made a weird face and shoved his fist back into his jacket pocket. Before Daniel could respond, Mr. Fairer – having an odd friendship with my cousin over their love of soccer – called him over for the weekly accounts of how the team was doing. Mr. Fairer rarely went to a meet, being highly afraid of crowds, so it was one of the only ways to enjoy a good game other than television.
“Oh, hey! How’s it goin,” he called back, walking over and away from this side of the fence.
Ian was watching me with cold eyes like he wanted to say something else nasty but he couldn’t. Then, without warning he turned around and started walking toward the road looking both ways for cars.
“You’re welcome, by the way!”
He didn’t say anything but he did make a crude finger gesture behind him aimed my way without looking to see if I’d seen it. I thought about calling Anna as I watched him walk down the road, disappearing around the next house. Clearly, someone had twisted something and I wondered where the idea that I caused her trouble had come from. We weren’t the only members of a church her parents were friends with. Actually, the community seemed to be split into thirds; those who always went, those who didn’t, and those who would probably burst into flames if they came anywhere near. I stuck him into that last group and Anna would more than likely be in there one day while her parents stayed in the second.
“Reggie! Can we play again?!”
Hannah was hanging out the screen door, yelling at me across the yard. I should’ve known her eight-year-old patience wouldn’t last very long.
“I’m coming! Get the jacks ready,” I called back, cupping my mouth.
I didn’t have time to worry about what the third sector of our town thought of all the Chapmans or even me alone. There would probably be one other time that I might see or talk to them and Anna would always be Anna. It was Sunday and I was going to enjoy it.
Second Impressions
School passed as it always did the next five days, boring and slow. There were tests to pass and notes to take and a seemingly endless line of responsibilities to fulfill in the way of rising to adulthood where another endless string would be added. Nothing interested me and I couldn’t even recall half of what I said to anyone I’d run upon. Saturday wasn’t much better because I spent it finishing off the work from the week before in almost total solitude and when that was over started the laundry that was beginning to pile up. That made me feel a little better after what was repeatedly running through my mind since Sunday. We didn’t have a maid and we had to wash our own clothes so it was a plus on the side of not being rich assholes. Although, a lot of my parent’s outfits had to be sent to the cleaners and I chose to ignore that. What they did was not what I did and I was my own person…usually.
But finally, the sun did rise on the extra chilly morning of Sunday and I had – not by want but the commands of my mother – to wake early for who would be joining the mass of Chapmans once again. In hindsight I probably could have tried harder to forget Anna had even asked for a ride and dealt with the consequences after church when her mother called mine, but I slipped up. I was sitting out front of her house in my Sunday best by seven thirty-seven like I’d told her without the slightest sign of life coming from their house. I knew I could make it without her if I left at seven forty-five or maybe even seven fifty driving illegally fast, so I leaned my head back on the seat, trying to rest my eyes.
A knock on the window jolted me awake. Immediately I glanced at the green dash clock instead of seeing who it was. I was a little late. It was seven fifty-one and I’d fallen asleep. Anna was standing on the other side of the passenger side window in another skimpy outfit for the season, waving for me to unlock the door, but there was someone behind her that made me hesitate. I don’t know how she’d done it but she had Ian closer than thirty feet from her house without her father coming out with a loaded gun. There was no chance he even had a clue. I was seconds from becoming an accessory.
I hit the unlock switch and watched her pause before getting in.
“Um…I have someone here who also needs a little of God’s light shining down upon him.”
A little dumbfounded I replied, “I have half a mind to just leave you both here in the street.”
“Why?” she asked with a stupidly oblivious expression I knew had to be faked.
“Because I’m haughty and my whole family thinks you’re both offensive,” I said sarcastically.
She scoffed and crawled in without closing the door. I was going to be quite late, I was already irritated by this, and I knew I’d be even angrier about it later. My family probably would be too but the audacity of these two was clouding over all that.
“You really expect me to drive him? I’m only taking you because I don’t want to hear it when Joan calls wondering why you didn’t get your Catholic therapy on this lovely morning.”
Right then he bent down and poked his head in front of hers to level his gaze with mine. I was amazed that he actually trimmed the scruff to look a little neater along with a wash for his hair but he still wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion.
“Aren’t you the one that said we could both benefit from making the choices you do? I’m just trying to veer off that path of becoming something your family wouldn’t even spit on,” he said with a cheeky half-smile.
I didn’t often want to punch people but having his face so close in that moment had my fingers twitching. I grit my teeth and started the car.
“Get in before I drive off. I’m late because of both of you. What happened to seven thirty?”
Ian crawled in the back, slamming the door hard while Anna shoved a stick of that headache-inducing gum in her mouth to create another cloud of mint like last weekend. She didn’t bother buckling and I didn’t bother telling her to as I sped down her street and turned on Redgrave Drive.
“I couldn’t find anything to wear and it wasn’t all my fault. He,” she pointed a thumb behind her, “didn’t show up until seven forty-seven. I assumed you wouldn’t mind since you were sleeping with your mouth open behind the wheel.”
I made a face no one else could see and veered around a sedan parked too far toward the road.
“You gave me the wrong directions,” Ian grumbled from the middle seat.
I glanced at him through the rearview mirror. There seemed to be something agitating him, making him hunch over and the skin by his eyes tense up like a squint. It looked like he was trying to make himself as small as possible so no one would pay attention.
“Have you ever even been in any kind of a church?” I asked.
All I got was a glare reflected toward me from the same mirror before he watched the houses pass again.
“Just asking. I wanted to know if we needed a fire extinguisher for when you stepped inside.”
The great stone spire I was heading toward was now in view. Mass would probably have started already and I would need to find a way of slipping us all in without interrupting, which was actually quite difficult because you could whisper in the nave from the back row and the front would at least hear the sound.
The parking lot behind was almost full and not a soul was in sight. This was the first time I’d ever been so late. I had to park in the back row along the pharmacy and so tightly near a tree I’d probably hit it as I left later. I turned the car off and stopped them both from exiting by locking the doors.
“Alright. We have to sneak in there quietly, got it? I can’t have the whole congregation turning to watch us find a seat because we interrupted the sermon so you’ll both follow me without speaking and sit where I tell you to,” I turned specifically to the back passenger, “And you, I don’t want anything from you but the sound of your brain absorbing every word the Father speaks. Whether I like it or not you’re basically my guest and I can only imagine the conversations if my parents found out I let you in without keeping you on a short leash.”
“Geez. It’s not that big a deal, Reggie,” Anna said, disconcerted by my unusual stern orders.
“No, actually it’s not a big deal to you. To me, who sees their relations much more than every few years, it is.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be on our best behavior and then we’ll step right on out of your Norman Rockwell, postcard life…at least for a little while,” Ian added, but something about the way he said it made me take a second glance.
There was a little note behind his words like he was hiding a plan and I didn’t know if it was to sabotage my Sunday or the plans Anna’s parents had for her. The second one was of zero importance to me. It might actually even be helpful. I would rather go on to service and dinner without any speed bumps, and in this way I could act oblivious once we all stood from the pews for the last time that day.
We all got out and walked across the lot, me taking a separate path from them as they whispered to each other. Instead of grabbing at the front entrance - a bright red set of doors that always reminded me of a castle front - I walked around to the right of the building where I knew one of the kitchen hall doors was usually left open for the members that couldn’t kick their nicotine habits. I wasn’t really sure what God’s stance was on smoking but I was glad it was still there, held ajar with a hunk of brick while Mr. Haverstein let out stinking puffs in the air nearby. His other hand waved at me but his squinty eyes watched the other two behind my back suspiciously with a couple twitches from his thick mustache.
“Good morning,” I smiled, pushing Anna and Ian through the opening ahead.
They started walking off to the side of the tables on the right in confusion before I followed in.
“Aye, that’s the wrong way.”
They both slid to a halt and turned on their heels so I walked on the correct way as guidance, taking the steps slowly and quietly, thankful that someone had decided they needed carpeted for the older people that would be trudging back and forth. We came around the corner of the tight hall – the purple matting making a slope upward and then sharply turning back, making a ‘v’ – until I was behind the correct door. This one led right to the back rows of the pews where the flower stands and the holy water sat in its bird-bath-like pedestal. I could hear Father Ryan’s deep voice on the other side of the wood.
“Remember what I said. I’m serious,” I ordered with a pointed look at Ian.
With the pace of a snail I turned the knob and edged the door open, peaking into the chapel and looking right to where I could see the top of my uncle’s bald head directly behind Grace’s hair in a tight blond knot as she bent forward. No one had heard or if they had they didn’t turn to look. I opened it a little more, just enough for us all to slip through. I was aiming for the very last row where only two people sat on the opposite side of the aisle. We would have this section all to ourselves and even though I couldn’t sit in my usual place with the rest of the Chapmans, it would be better to keep an eye on the two following me in.
I turned around in a half crouch by the nearest bouquet of strongly scented lilies. Anna had already wandered around the wall of the right wing looking for her seat from last Sunday which she found without a word, right behind where I should be sitting. Ian was looking lost by the center aisle. I reached over and took a fistful of his jacket dragging him with me to the last pew and gesturing for him to shush as he sat down next to me. He started to whisper something but I shoved my hand over his mouth knowing the acoustics of the room. His beard scratched at the palm of my hand while I grabbed the pad of paper I always used when I got bored out of where I kept it in my jacket pocket. It was hard to focus on not falling asleep in my seat sometimes.
I shoved it and a pen from the bible slot at him with a pointed look.
He wrote, after a disinclined glance, “Where the hell did she run off to?”
I jerked it away from him and began scrawling across the lines myself.
“I don’t think it’s a great idea to swear in church even if you’re writing it down.”
I handed it back but when he went to write again and wasn’t looking at me, I poked him in the leg and pointed across the rows of people to the back of Anna’s head. His pen froze as he seemed to think something over. He went to write and stopped again just once before deciding what he actually wanted to say with another glance at her back.
“She usually act like this?”
“Like what? Completely ignoring anything that doesn’t have to do with her present thought or obliviously wandering off? It’s her way of trying to look interestingly distracted.”
I handed it over, tossing it into his jeaned lap and trying to actually pay attention to what I was here for. That week we were on the sanctity of giving. I was pretty sure it was a recycled piece that had been preached at least once while I’d been alive. Ian let out a quick puff of air from his nose that passed as a laugh. I don’t know if he thought I was joking or just found it honestly and correctly funny. A moment later the pad landed back in my hands.
“This is awkward.”
I gave him a sideways look but he was at least intently looking to the front. I wasn’t sure he was actually listening. His face didn’t look quite as stiffly aggravated as it did last weekend but it was still there and I could tell he was slightly uncomfortable either being where he was or who he was with. He was probably expecting to sneak away with Anna when I wasn’t looking or before I could drive her home. I was totally fine with that…as long as it was all done at an octave a dog would have trouble hearing.
“If you pay attention you won’t notice. It should be the real reason why you’re here,” I started to hand it back but thought of something else and pulled it back from his open hand, “and besides, Father Ryan is much more interesting than your girlfriend, seeing as what he has to say isn’t usually about himself.”
“What’s your problem with her, anyway?”
I thought about it, pen wavering above the paper while I absently watched the man in front of me scratch at the color of his shirt under the black suit jacket he wore. It looked awfully tight around his neck but it might’ve been his skin sagging with age.
I bent down and began to write, “You know how you have a problem with me because what you think you see is a bunch of people who’ve been hollowed out and filled with money and hard feelings? Meaning the Chapman’s as a whole? Well, trust me when I say my uncle Dave has more personality in his left arm than Anna has had since I’ve known her and we’ve been shoved together since the age of six. Also, Dave is an accountant who collects quarters if that will sway your opinion any.”
He didn’t write back that time, only sat the pad down between us and fiddled with the pen for the rest of the sermon until the clicking got so annoying that I smacked it out of his hand. It hit the pew in front of us with a loud tap and then rolled beneath our feet. Thankfully, he didn’t bother looking for it.
I could tell that Jesus had not brought any peace between us.
As soon as I could when the Father was finished, I hurried up to where my family was to find my mother, leaving Ian to find Anna which didn’t take long at all. They had reunited behind the pillars to the loft. Apparently, my words had little effect on his opinion of her. I was beginning to think they were perfect for each other.
The person I was looking for was busy chatting on the other side of the row with the people around her, blocked by those of my family who hadn’t slid down yet. Grant walked by my shoulder like he was searching for someone.
“Hey,” I grabbed his sleeve, “I don’t suppose you want to take a turn and drive someone home today? She brought a guest.”
He chuckled and gave me a look like I was joking.
“I’m serious.”
“She’s your friend.”
I glared at him pinching hard on his coat sleeve until I could feel skin.
“Do you remember Ian Wright?” I asked, as he thumped me until I let go of him.
“Yeah. I had a few classes with him in high school. Why?”
“I know, and didn’t you say he once stabbed a kid in the hand or something?”
“It wasn’t that big a deal. Honestly, the guy deserved it and it was only with a small X-ACTO knife. He barely bled. What’s this about anyway? Why are you bringing him up?”
I grabbed him again and spun his head around to look right where Anna was standing with the subject of our conversation, not exactly acting how you should in church.
“Anna brought him to mass?!”
“Anna left him with me actually and was sitting right behind all of you the whole time. I mean he didn’t threaten me with a pen or anything but what if after I drop her off he wants me to take him somewhere and I maybe just don’t show up to dinner, if you know what I mean.”
“Wait, the guy’s a little crazy but you’re acting a little ridiculous. Plus, from what I see them doing I doubt he’s going to be leaving her any time soon.”
At that moment, mom showed up by our side and I knew I wasn’t going to persuade him. I would just have to shove Ian to the curb as soon as Anna crawled out…unless Grant was right about them running off together when they got the chance. And no matter how badly I didn’t want to be their chauffeur, it was better than keeping them around my nephew when I thought about it. I wouldn’t mind him being around Grace though.
“Don’t be late to your grandfather’s house again, Reggie. You probably should go ahead and leave with…”
At that moment my mother spotted Anna in the back and the young man standing against her in the shadows.
“Who is that?”
“Ian Wright,” I said with a huff.
“Isn’t that…what is he doing here with her? You know what her mother is going to say when she hears that I let those two near each other?!”
“I couldn’t really do anything about it, mom. They held me at gunpoint with my own words.”
She stared down at me with one eyebrow raised, a frown, and said, “I don’t really know what you just said but you should get going either way. Do not drive him home alone. He gets out when she does and we’ll let her parents deal with them.”
Reluctantly, I walked back down the aisle shuffling my feet along the hardwood floors of the church. No one stopped to talk to me like I wished but seemed to all be in the middle of conversations with each other. Even Georgia Ryan, who I’d always suspected to have a second set of lungs that she liked to show off, was sitting far away, quietly listening to someone else’s stories for a change. Anna was the only one who would see me and, of course, didn’t pay attention. She only had eyes for the guy hovering over her. I coughed after politely waiting a minute or two. Ian turned around looking annoyed.
“You do realize where you are, right?”
They both looked at me like it didn’t matter at all.
“Let’s go,” I said, shoving them out the door behind a pair of old ladies in pastel church suits.
They were surprisingly quiet not only as I backed the car out of its space – and did bump into the tree just a little – but the whole ride back. Once, I looked in the rearview mirror to see why Ian was so suspiciously silent. He was calmly looking to the front and glanced up at me feeling my stare.
We pulled up in front of her house and immediately caught the attention of her Dad standing right in the middle of the front yard, raking leaves. He waved and smiled seeing me in the driver’s seat.
“Oh, shit,” Anna shout-whispered.
I turned toward her, shielding my face with my hair and talking through my teeth.
“You never thought to mention that your father would be home at about this time, doing yard work right in the way of the door…”
She ignored me and half tilted her head behind her.
“You can’t come in. He’s looking right over here. Reggie, you gotta do me a favor and pretend Ian’s with you or something.”
“I have to do you a favor?! I was just contemplating making you walk to mass from here on out.”
“Honestly, what do you expect me to do? Drag him out there with me and introduce him?”
There was a tap on my window and the both of us jumped, looking up. Mr. Reeve was smiling and making a motion with his hand to roll the window down. With a defiant look her way I did just that.
“Hey, Mr. Reeve. How are you today?”
“Good, good. I wanted to thank you for driving Anna back and forth. It wasn’t my idea but I know how important it was to Joan,” he chuckled, then his eyes fell on Ian behind me.
“Hi, didn’t see you there,” his smile wavered just a little, “you a friend of the girls, from school?”
Anna looked at me pleading with her eyes and I sincerely thought about giving them away. It would be so easy, such a sweet feeling to get her in trouble. I would say, ‘Nope, this is the guy who wants in your daughter’s pants’ and drive off because, hey, he wasn’t my dad. But it was Sunday. If I didn’t help just a little, knowing how good a person I was trying to convince everyone (including myself) that I was, I would be a hypocrite…But then, I would also be lying. Lying wasn’t something I wanted to get in the habit of. Like I said, honesty was a lesson that had been drilled into my brain from a very young age.
Mr. Reeve was waiting and starting to get that funny look on his face like he did when he caught Anna trying to trick me into jumping from their trampoline into the pool. My good nature won out with the pressure all the tension was giving it.
“Yeah. He’s coming to the Ole Chapman Dinner so we can finish a project, which I really should be getting to. Don’t want to be late again.”
I looked over at Anna after giving a cheesy grin to her father. She was clearly shocked in the top half of her face, the bottom smiling equal to mine. Her expression was real.
“Alright, come on Anna. We don’t want to keep them. Put a little effort into actually getting out of that car.”
Actually, I thought she was moving rather quickly but it might’ve been the nerves of having lied about something that was kind of important. My toes were numb again, I noticed.
Anna slammed the door shut and waved as she walked alongside Mr. Reeve to where his heap of leaves was laying. I glared at her and that ridiculous dress hoping he would make her help him so she could really feel the chill in the air.
“Hop in front.”
“Really,” I heard Ian say with sarcasm.
“I’m not saying it for my health. You weren’t even supposed to be in this car to begin with and now it’s just the two of us so I want you where I can see you.”
“I could just get out and walk.”
“No, because they’ve seen you,” I pointed to Joan’s face peeking out the front door, “you’re supposed to be going to dinner at my grandpa’s.”
“Okay, so where are we really going?”
“What do you mean,” I turned in my seat to look right at him, “I said we were going and that’s what we’ll do.”
“Hang on a sec.”
He crawled over the armrest - much to my dismay - plopping down in the passenger seat and making the car rock back and forth just a little. Up here, I could smell the scent of wood smoke and cigarettes on his clothes.
“You’re dragging me into the inner sanctuary of the Chapmans? The highest seat of the Chapmans?”
“Yep, and you’re gonna love it. My grandma’s the best cook in the family and in town, in my not-so-biased opinion.”
He looked a little amazed but also like he might jump out of the car once we were out of sight, even if it was moving. I thought it was hilarious. Right after all the things he’d said about us, we were going to feed him whether he liked it or not. After that I had no idea what to do with him, but he didn’t seem to have trouble walking to wherever he’d come from last time.
As I turned the opposite corner of the path I’d taken that morning, I noticed something.
“Buckle your seat belt. Are you trying to die?”
Feasting in the Enemy’s Den
When I swung the big green door open, the knocker clanged against the wood. Grant was passing by the stairs, head bent together with David’s talking something over. They both swung around to see who had jolted them. Instantly, their eyes slid from my face to the one behind me.
“Whaaat are you doing?” Grant asked, caught by surprise.
“I’m bringing a guest who could benefit from a good hot meal.”
Behind me Ian whispered, “I’m not homeless. I hope you know that.”
“Oh, this will be good. Go introduce him to the rest of the family. I’d like to see this.”
I walked past him with a punch to his shoulder and heard David, who had already met Ian but under false pretenses, ask Grant what he was missing. I was glad he was the only one I’d lied to about who this actually was.
In the kitchen, Mom was just pulling a casserole out of the oven on my grandmother’s orders while the other scrubbed something in the sink with her back to us. My aunt Jennine was hanging against the island with a glass of crimson wine like she always was, the only thing changing from week to week was the color of the liquid in the glass. When the door swung closed behind us, I suddenly felt the gravity of what I’d done for the first time and began to sweat. I had to take my jacket off before I could attend to the choked look on my mother’s face. Kitchens in full swing are not the best places to be when you’re hot from nerves.
I threw the grey article on the nearest chair, gestured for Ian to do the same with his blue-jeaned one, and faced them.
“Hi. What are we having?”
“Um,” mom sat the hot pan down and shook off the black oven mitt to put her hands on her hips, “weren’t you giving him a ride back to Anna’s?”
I sighed, knowing how awkward this was going to be because my mother would try to say something nice while actually meaning something rude and Ian - what she wasn’t too happy about - was right there. So, I was going to be blunt about it all. The warm smell of the chicken on the counter was making me hangry.
“Anna’s dad was in the yard, we lied and said Ian was another student and friend of ours, and to make him suffer – because he said some things about us which I won’t bother to tell you and you would probably do the same to him – he’s eating here. Also, David thinks I know Ian from school, so…maybe I should go explain.”
I turned on my heel and started around my guest. Just as I pushed the door open it hit something solid. Mom was calling me back from behind. Whoever had been on the other side sounded as pleased as she did. I grabbed the edge and swung it back toward me. Grant was standing there rubbing the side of his head making his short hair stand up over his ear in dirty blonde spikes. David was holding his stomach, laughing so hard that the only noises coming out of him were little squeaks on and off.
I waited for Grant to meet my eye and with a straight face said, “Why are you always where you’re not supposed to be?”
“Reggie, pay attention.”
Mom was still standing in the same position but some of her masked anger was now slipping out from underneath, making her usually smooth face wrinkle. Grandma had apparently forgotten all about it already and was more worried about setting the table before she started hearing complaints from the entire family about rumbling stomachs. I didn’t blame her for hurrying with the husband she had. Jennine had left as soon as mom uttered the words, “Um,” never being one to stick around at the sign of any sort of altercation. I could understand that as well.
“I’m going to let this slide but it’s a one-time thing. We don’t throw people out on the street without a good meal no matter who they are, especially when it’s Sunday. Young man, I don’t want any trouble, got it?”
I almost laughed at my mother trying to order Ian around knowing at least some of the things he was accused of. He didn’t look like he found it funny though and nodded his head in agreement beside me without a word. This day was turning out to be real weird.
She grabbed the bowl of green beans in a rough sweep and pointed right at me.
“You two are sitting next to each other.”
And then she was out the other door, somewhere in the dining room with grandma.
-
-
-
“So, what brought you back to town, Ian?”
Ian had had a bite of chicken halfway in his mouth as soon as my dad asked him this but dropped the fork down a little, the meat stabbed through and hanging limp on the tines. He looked around at the other occupants of the table as though if they were listening he would’ve had a different answer. His eyes stopped on mine next to him, realizing I was the only other one waiting besides who had asked him the question.
With an uncertain glance he replied, “I assumed everyone here knew but it was a date I was supposed to have.”
My father’s eyebrows shot up just enough that his next words weren’t a surprise to me. I already had a rejection ready.
“With Reggie?”
Ian’s eyes had been on the plate in front of him, longingly watching the food that was probably getting cold. They darted up between us with a puzzled look on his face that knotted his full eyebrows tightly together. The idea must have offended him.
“No,” he hurried to say louder than before, “it was Anna Reeve. Anna was who I was supposed to meet.”
“Ah,” Dad added, finally allowing Ian to eat with a short portion of silence.
Thankfully, by the time my father did think up what he said next, the conversations at the other end of the table picked up with roars of laughter and the clinking of people eating or simply running into each other as they chortled.
“Well, that’s good. You two seem more like the right match. From what I’ve heard around you might get a little bored with our Reggie here.”
Ian’s greyish eyes got a bit stormy then and I could see his jaw working on that chicken more than it needed. I decided to turn the insult back on myself. I was used to it anyway.
“Thanks, dad. I mean, I knew I wasn’t all that adventurous, but I saw it as a positive until just now. Sorry I don’t call you from the police station more often,” I held my hands up in defense, “my bad.”
“Oh, Regg. You know what I mean. Your head’s always off in the clouds or a book. You barely speak to anyone unless they’re in your way or your mother makes you. I can’t tell you how many times I had a full-on talk with you and realized when you got that funny, angry look on your face that you were solving a puzzle in that brain of yours all the while.”
“Well,” I took a bite of potatoes thinking, “that’s a little better. Before, you basically insinuated I was the human equivalent of a stale cracker.”
Low and too quiet for anyone but me to hear Ian snorted before taking a drink of his water. I noticed something then. He’d been around me for at least four hours without any real incident. All the talk going around town seemed to be a ruse, something conjured up out of boredom because he happened to get into a little trouble once in a while. But there were still records out in the world with his name on them no matter how peaceable he was that day; a few streaks of fire in a usually regular road.
“Do you think you’ll be staying long?” Dad asked over his glass.
“Um, here?”
Dad chuckled and lightly shook his head before saying, “No. I mean in town.”
“Well, considering it is my home, I’ll say that’s a yes.”
“For the Reeve girl as well, I assume.”
I was curious to hear his answer, wondering if my opinions at the church were enough to dissuade him or if he was truly interested in ‘getting to know’ Anna Reeve. There wasn’t really much to find out though.
There was a quick flicker from Ian’s eyes that I barely caught, like he’d glanced to his left either at the center-piece or the end of the table where Grant was trying and failing to feed Riley. Food was spilling down the kid’s chin like he’d puked it up but I didn’t know if it had even been swallowed yet.
“No, actually. That’s a mess I’d rather stay out of, no offense.”
“Oh, it’s no offense to me. The Reeves are my wife’s friends, but I really thought after you showed up to mass this morning that you would be one of the persistent ones the girl dragged around. You do seem a restless type.”
Again, there was that stormy look spreading across Ian’s face. I couldn’t think of something to add to the conversation, mostly picturing the fork in the young man’s hand next me quickly making its way into Dad’s eye. He was gripping it awful tight at the base, spikes in the air.
“Ice cream,” I announced cheerily, “Ice cream and pie. I’m going to go get some. You wanna come with me, Ian? Sure, you do.”
I grabbed his rigid right arm and tugged him out of the seat, my father looking at me with a crooked eyebrow like I was being a nut. Ian didn’t feel like he was resisting me dragging him away but more like he was resisting the urge to make an outburst by flipping the table and leaving. The door to the kitchen swung back and forth behind us before settling straight again, my hands already in the cabinet for a smaller plate. I had been joking before but the idea of pie was now warming to me. That never took long, really. Ian stayed standing right in front of the door, staring ahead and a little bit down. I could tell it wasn’t the granite counter of the center island he was studying but his own thoughts. Before I could muster up something to say, I let myself really see how odd it was that he was here, fuming in my grandparent’s kitchen. Yesterday our problems were nowhere near connected. If I found him where he was standing that day, I would assume he was here to steal something.
“Are you cutting it or am I?”
He blinked and turned my way with anger still mingling among his features.
“What?”
“The pie. I’m a little challenged when it comes to carving and assume you’ve had more practice with a knife. Want to do the honors?”
“Actually, I’d like to leave,” he said, grabbing the jacket off the chair to his right.
It looked like it probably wouldn’t add much warmth. He shrugged it on with two quick moves of his arms.
“Are you sure? This pie is usually fantastic and you don’t have to eat the ice cream if it’ll send you running to the bathroom. Lord knows what it does to my cousin Bryce.”
“I’m good. See ya.”
With a wave behind him he walked to the opposite door, ready to go.
“You know, you don’t have to run off just because my dad’s being an ass and assuming he knows your whole make-up. I mean, you already said we were all like that anyway and I haven’t really tried to prove you wrong all morning. I don’t know if you’re angry because he’s right or because he’s wrong, but instead of fleeing the scene without dessert, maybe you could show him you aren’t as impulsive as you seem. It’s just an idea. I don’t really care what you do.”
He did pause to give me a squinted look. For a moment I thought he was considering the steaming dish before me with its baked brown crust and apples poking out, tempting even me to just take a fork to it. But with a funny shake of his head almost too small to see, he pushed the swinging door open.
“Don’t save a piece for me,” he called back.
Why?
The doorbell rang half way through the timer for a batch of brownies. I planned to eat them entirely by myself since no one had graced me with their presence all evening or acted like they lived in our home at all but twice a week. After running down the stairs I slid back and forth in the hall torn between which to check first. The front door was in my sight but the heat just might destroy the snack I’d been dreaming about since fourth period. Duty won out. I wasn’t expecting who was on the other side of the glass.
“Hold on just two seconds. My brownies are gonna burn,” I told Ian, waving him in and sliding down the slick floorboards in my socks toward the piercing ring in the kitchen.
I didn’t get the chance to really look at him either to see if he was there for nefarious reasons or thought I was naive for not checking. The steam hit me in the face like a smothering blanket but the brownies were fine. In fact, they needed a minute or two more. I shoved the door closed with a clang and saw the reflection of Ian wandering in behind me in the little smudged window. He looked somewhat lost and uncomfortable. There was also something different about him I couldn’t put my finger on yet.
Turning around with the egg-shaped timer twisting in my hands I asked, “So, what did ya need?”
“I could have been a murderer,” he looked at me more perturbed than I thought he should be, “You just swung the door open and ran off.”
“I saw your face and hey, if you’re here to murder me or steal our television, get on with it because otherwise you are an incredibly slow villain.”
His expression dropped, impassive, but thankfully he didn’t lunge for the knives or whip out a gun. Instead, he stepped all the way into the room and stuffed his hands in his pockets taking in each part of the kitchen from the large mahogany cabinets to the pale wood floors that, when I looked at them for once, could probably use a good sweeping.
“Your house looks older on the outside,” he remarked.
“We remodeled. Well, Mom did when I was too little to remember but we have some pictures in the photo albums.”
“So, are you any good at baking?”
“Um…I guess I’m not terrible at it. These brownies should be pretty good, if I do say so myself,” I said with a cheeky smile, pointing toward the oven behind me.
“Well that’s good because I need a baker.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brown bag barely big enough to hold a bar of soap. It was all wrinkled up like he’d shoved it into his pocket about a dozen times. There was a slightly wicked grin crinkling his cheeks near his eyes and I realized then what was different about his appearance. The scruff was gone from his cheeks and the messy look of his hair, different browns mingling together, was a little cleaner and more orderly. I could take a guess at what was in that sack but I never thought anyone actually carried it around like that, the way they always showed on TV. It was ridiculous, especially that he thought I’d help him out.
I snorted with a shake of my head.
“Hell no.”
“Come on. Can you imagine how much better anything we put this in will be, made in the nicest stove in town?”
“I can imagine the smell that will waft to every corner of this house if I do. Also, the stove is the top part so technically if we were baking those “goods” you’ve got there in anything it would be the oven.”
“Okay, smart ass. Come on, you’ve never had anything stronger than cold medicine in your life, have you?”
“Probably not, but that doesn’t mean I plan on starting now…or ever.”
“Really?” he asked, unconvinced and waving the bag nonchalantly like it contained a pack of gum.
“Really, really. Is there anything else you need that doesn’t involve making my house smell like a skunk exploded in the furnace? You know, there are many other people - more willing people - in this town and the next with two hands and perfectly good ovens?”
“Yes, but none of them need it quite as badly as you do.”
There was a smirk on his face that begged for a slap. Without further ado, he slid the same jacket he wore when I last saw him off his shoulders and threw it across the back of the closest seat by the breakfast table. The foreignness of it didn’t hit me as hard as I’d thought it would, like it had been there before but only once.
“Are you just bored and need something to do? Don’t you have a job?” I asked as the timer went off sharp and shrill in my hands, rattling back and forth.
“Well, yes and no,” he started as I turned around, “I’m only bored because my shift is over and this stuff can be useful on good and bad days. Don’t you want to try just a little bit? You’re not even curious, because this is a great offer I’m giving you. It isn’t exactly cheap and you’d be getting a share free.”
“Lucky me,” I mumbled, slipping the oven mitt off and reaching for a knife.
I felt the pressure of him beside me before I saw his figure in the corner of my eye. Instinctively, I tensed. The grip I had on that black handled blade tightened a fraction more. All he wanted though was to get a look at the pan I pulled at, smelling the chocolate steaming up to our noses.
“I’ll tell you what,” I started cutting as he watched the crumbles build up at the edges, “let’s just try these out for now, free of charge. You can have as many as you want.”
He sighed but I could see the goofy smile wanting to crinkle up his cheeks again. I lied a little bit though. I would probably take half the pan for myself so he wouldn’t be getting more than that even if he wanted it.
-
-
-
“So, how are they working for you? Got a nice buzz yet,” I said, smiling and standing for some milk.
He was finishing off his third square, eating faster than I thought he would and beating me at my goal already. It was funny to see someone who’d supposedly bit people and thrown chairs across rooms, sitting at my kitchen table, scarfing down something I made like it really did have marijuana in it. For the first time, while pretending to focus on pouring two glasses without spilling, I tried to really look at him. I wanted to see if there was something I was missing, hidden under miles of presumptions.
Ian was a careful eater. He didn’t actually scarf it as I said before. It was fast eating for sure, but he did this almost like a magic trick where he would take deliberate bites and if you looked away, you’d find his serving gone a moment later. I wondered how long it had taken him to learn that skill; eating like he wasn’t sure when he’d get the chance again without looking like a slob at all.
I sat the glasses down in front of us and continued observing him over the plates and the crumbs. He moved his hands very carefully, especially reaching for the glass as though it might break if he grabbed it too quickly. They were rough hands, if I was honest about it, and just by glancing you could tell. The calluses were clear on the sides of his thumbs and in places on his palms right under each finger, scars mapping from there all the way around to the backs where the knuckles were. A massive one divided his right hand diagonally in half.
“Where do you work?” I asked, his eyes following mine to the mark in his skin.
“Junkyard,” he answered, fiddling with the deep cut designs in the clear glass.
“Is that why your hands look like that? Where all the scars came from?”
“Some of them.”
I felt like he didn’t exactly want to talk about any of that. He was beginning to fidget and look at the clock, the fourth brownie sitting abandoned in the center of his plate with only one bite out of it.
“You can leave. You don’t have to keep me company just to have something to eat. Take as much as you need. We’ll always get more.”
“What makes you think I don’t have food at my own place?” he asked, that same look from the other day floating over his features making the color of his eyes appear more like thunder clouds under his dark, furrowed brow.
“The way you’ve eaten today and Sunday. It might not be that you can’t get anything to eat but that you can’t cook a good meal. Either way, both times you’ve had more than your share. Not that it’s a bad thing but I noticed only because I was looking. Otherwise I wouldn’t see it.”
His lids squinted at me in what would usually be a glare. Ian somehow made it look more like a challenge.
“Maybe they’re just good brownies,” he suggested.
“Maybe,” I mumbled, taking another bite in the silence and then a drink.
His gaze on me did not budge. Something I had said bothered him in some way that he couldn’t let go of.
“Why do you speak in that way?”
With a mouthful and trying to cover it I asked, “Like what? Do I have an accent or something?”
He ignored the sarcasm, shaking his head.
“Blurt everything out like you don’t expect it to have a consequence. Or maybe you don’t care if it does.”
“Was I wrong to observe you?”
“It’s not just that. The way you point things out…it’s like you don’t think you’ll ever find trouble because of your mouth. What you said about Anna, talking about me to my face, or when you mention anything. It’s like no one can touch you, and we should all be grateful for your attention.”
I could feel him tensing across the round, wooden shape of the table, but even though I knew it should worry me, I just couldn’t pull myself to care anymore. I watched his hand at the side of his plate turn into a knotted fist slowly and thought there was no way he would hit me. There was a little voice in the center of me saying that I was the last person on earth he would swing at and I had no idea where it came from. So, I pushed further.
“So, whether it was assumptions or not, was I wrong?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I barely heard him say, looking at the ridges on the table.
“Why do I bother you so much? Everyone makes observations - has opinions - and you can’t say that you don’t. No one has their own ideas about anything or anyone, they just gather everyone else’s until it’s an ugly monster of a thing that’s nearly impossible to remold. You’re just mad because I don’t keep them to myself. Maybe that’s what you have against religion too, and you’re right in some ways about it. People around here hold on too tightly to what they believe which is dangerous. That’s the thing about beliefs - whether they’re correct or not - we all hold on to them too tightly as if a rug’s being ripped out from under our feet. We just don’t realize that the rug is more stable than the rope we’ve clung to until it’s cut away by force.”
He blinked at me, clearly perplexed by my ramblings.
“You’re such a weird person…and I think I’ve made up my mind that I’m never going to get it. I’ll just leave it alone.”
I was still too curious and asked, “Am I wrong, though?”
“About what,” he said, turning suddenly tired eyes on me.
“Anna, or maybe even why you eat the way you do?”
He sighed, grabbing his glass just to have something to look at and touch while he spoke. I don’t think he was expecting the evening to turn out the way it had but it had come as a surprise to me too. I wondered which of us was more flexible when it came to flowing with wherever the day took us.
“Yes…at least I think so.”
I stared at his collar while thinking; a blue button up like the sky, opened to a t-shirt beneath so faded that I couldn’t tell what the symbols had been or meant. Only because of what he’d said did I hold off on asking about the childhood he’d had all over the papers and on TV. I would save that for another time, if we ever ran into each other again after that day.
“I couldn’t really tell you about Anna for sure,” he added with a smirk directed at my left shoulder, “I’ve decided not to pursue that little adventure but I’ll let you know if I hear anything. I might be too restless to stick around long though.”
With that he met my gaze straight on, an even bigger smile creeping across his mouth. I couldn’t help but grin back, realizing what he meant by the comment. I didn’t have anything against my father. I could definitely tell where I’d gotten such loose lips from, though.
I looked at the clock, a shadow of humor on both of our faces quickly fading away. It was already past eight thirty. With a curious tilt of his head, making a few short waves of his hair tilt across his forehead, he asked me something I hadn’t thought about in a long time. There was always something to distract either on TV or in the school work that needed done by the next day.
“Where are your parents?”
“No clue.”
“Isn’t that a little odd? You’re like, what? Fifteen, Sixteen?”
“Seventeen, actually, but it’s nothing new. I’m usually here alone on weekdays until sometime after nine or ten, especially after Grant graduated.”
“Grant’s your brother,” he stated.
“You met on Sunday. The goon with the baby that probably shouldn’t have one.”
“Ah, I remember. I think we met before that though, when we were both in high school. Isn’t there a big age difference between you?”
“Well,” I poked around at the crumbs on my plate, smooshing them into one big one, “I think after seven years my mom decided having one more boy wouldn’t be too bad since she had the experience of the first. She must’ve been quite unprepared when a girl came out because she never really treated me like one, I guess you could say.”
“In what way?” he asked, scooping another brownie onto my plate that I bit into without a second thought.
“Most people bombard their daughters with glittery pink crap, deciding right off that they should wear dresses and take ballet lessons. I got soccer balls and my room was painted white like she thought about trying a neutral color and then the swatches overwhelmed her so she chose the cheapest thing. To me, it wasn’t really that bad. I was left to make up my own mind about everything; whether I liked a certain color or sport, wanted to play with dirt and worms or help grandma in the kitchen. Still, I find it odd when I think about it and wonder if that’s the main reason why I turned out the way I did. It was probably all an accident.”
“What way is that?”
“Well, you’ve stated it and my father put it one way: weird.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing, with your tone a little disgusted,” he said with a humorous note that hit the corner of his eyes but turned his smile into more of a frown.
With my lips parted to respond - to say something along the lines of how I’d just realized I was the product of a lack of interest instead of imbued with some sort of initiative - we both stopped at the sound of the front door opening. Keys slammed against the side table down the hall.
“Reggie, are you baking again?” Mom called.
I looked across to Ian at the way his face completely morphed into a mask I’d only seen him wear the second time we met, when a mass of people was around us. It was a blank look as though he was trying to convince everyone that his level of not caring was so high, he might fall asleep.
“Now, see? It’s a good thing we didn’t actually do what you came here for,” I whispered and stood up to hold the kitchen door open.
She was kicking her knee-high boots off with a frustrated scrunch in her face, her hair curled like always but windblown to loosen the waves.
“Just a little bit.”
She glanced up, seeing my figure backlit by the brighter kitchen lights, and started slowly walking my way with her mail catching most of her attention.
“Is there any left or did you eat a whole pan on your own again? Did you make dinner with it at least?”
“Actually, I only had three brownies and Ian had three and half but I didn’t exactly make a meal so much as fill myself up on pizza rolls and a salad.”
“Well…I guess that’s something. Who’d you say was here?”
She was a foot in front of me now and must not have slept well the night before. The rings under her eyes were darker than usual and puffy. This close I could see how tightly wound her shoulders were, practically touching her ears. I reached out and lightly pushed them down while she stared at whatever was so interesting in those envelopes. She stopped ignoring me long enough to shoot a raised brow my way.
“Ian. I said Ian ate the other brownies.”
“Ian who? I don’t remember anyone by that name. I thought your last friend was called Jerrod?”
“That guy wasn’t my friend, he was Grant’s. I had one altercation with him and his name was Jeremy. You met Ian on the weekend and I don’t know about him but,” I turned looking at the back of his head on the other side of the wall, him listening with it tilted toward me, “so far I think we’re just acquaintances.”
A few seconds passed with her staring right at me puzzled before realization dawned on her face. She almost dropped the stack in her hands.
“Ian Wright?! You shared brownies with that boy,” she scream-whispered.
I could hear him cracking up at the tone my mother used and the words she’d spoken them in. His voice sounded deeper when he laughed like that.
“Don’t you think it’s a little better than me eating all of them on my own?”
“Reggie,” she chided.
“He’s leaving soon anyway. Just let the man have his dessert and leave. We’re making up for the pie he didn’t get a bite of.”
She huffed and turned around, heading for her office so she could go back to work after just leaving it, like most days. Before she went through the glass-paned double doors she had to stop to the right and grab her slippers that always reminded me of something Sherlock Holmes would wear. Behind me Ian was already standing up and grabbing the jacket he’d been leaning against to shrug it on.
“You don’t actually have to leave right now. She’ll be in there so long and so oblivious that you could probably spend the night for three days and she wouldn’t notice. Saturdays are when she wakes up.”
“It’s alright. There’s somewhere I need to be anyway,” he replied, patting the pocket with the lump in it.
“Have you ever tried going about your day completely as you are, Ian? You know, like clear-headed and all.”
He blinked slowly at me a few times before pushing past out the door and letting it swing into my shoulder. I followed him out, knowing he didn’t want me to.
“Some might even say it’s refreshing to be able to smell the roses they walk by instead of not noticing them until they tip over into the bushes.”
“Okay,” he swung around with an irritated look, stopping me short a few inches from him, “that’s enough of that. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, once again, and I don’t have to listen to this. I’m practically out the door already and don’t worry I won’t grace it with my stench again if it bothers you so much, Your Highness.”
“It does bother me but you don’t have to be so dramatic about it. Chill there, bud.”
He huffed, scratched at his hair roughly sending waves of a wood smoke smell off of him toward me, and spun on his heel before disappearing out the front door.
“Why was he even here,” I muttered the question to myself, shuffling up the stairs.
Heather
“Do you think they’d like red better than yellow? Or maybe they’re looking for something kind of neutral.”
“I think,” I spun around, drawing out my words, “that if we don’t hurry up and buy something in five minutes I’m going to lay down in the middle of this aisle and cry at the ceiling.”
I didn’t have many friends. Truthfully, there were about two. The one who could deal with me the most often was Heather because even though her habits often got on my nerves, I didn’t push her away as much. I could deal with the constant prattling between herself and the voices in her head because much of it was hilarious…and she filled in the silence when I didn’t want to speak, which was most of the time.
She gave me a withering look before shoving her mouth off to the side of her face, chewing on the inside of her cheek and staring right into my eyes without actually seeing them. It was time to buy a gift for her mother and the man she was about to marry. That night was their rehearsal dinner and Heather hadn’t bothered to search for anything until the last minute but it wasn’t like she ever did anything any differently.
“Just pick the yellow. Your house is like living in a lightbulb anyway. You might as well continue to blind your guests as they walk in the door with another bright object for all that light to refract off of.”
“Fine,” she said with a deep and dramatic sigh, reaching up for the teapot above that was already starting to hurt my eyes with its shine.
“Who even drinks tea anymore, anyway?”
“Everyone but you, dear,” she answered.
Her ponytail flipped back and forth like a huge sandy cloud in front of me, threatening to whip my forehead as she walked to the end of the aisle and around the corner making a beeline for the cashiers.
Under my breath while snatching a nougat candy bar off a rack I muttered, “Thank God.”
“Am I paying for that?”
I gave her my best cheesy grin as an answer.
On the way out the sliding doors that screamed sale in bold red letters, Heather began to talk but I didn’t realize it until she thumped me in the side of the head. I was staring at the creepiest doll babies I’d ever seen on display. Apparently, children had stopped having nightmares sometime after we were born.
Rubbing just above my left ear where my braid on that side had left a rooster tail, I exclaimed, “Ow! How was I supposed to know you were talking to me this time?!”
But it wasn’t that I’d stopped listening before she started. Her clear blue eyes were wide and pointed off to the right side of the parking lot as if I was missing something very plain. Right in front of a Rite Aid, only about twenty feet away was a woman lying on the pavement in a pool of her own vomit. She wasn’t wearing a jacket even though our breath made miniature clouds in the air. From this far away it was hard to see if her chest was rising or not, but I could tell she was out cold. One of her arms was bent crookedly beneath her like she’d fallen on her side.
Naturally, I took a step that way intending to get a better look. A claw-like hand grabbed at my shoulder frantically. Heather’s expression was terrified when I turned around.
“Reggie,” she hissed out another cloud that drifted off away from us.
“Yes? Can I help you,” I spit with maybe a little too much annoyance.
Without taking her gaze off the woman, she asked, “What are you doing? You can’t walk toward that!”
“You mean the unconscious person over there that probably needs help? Uh, yeah. I can.”
Her attitude was starting to annoy me, but I wasn’t sure if this was just shock that hadn’t worn off yet. Either way, I was wasting time standing here talking to her about it.
I took another two or three steps before I was stopped again. I swung around to glare at my gutless friend. Still she stared at the stranger like she thought they might start crawling rapidly toward her, trying to eat her flesh.
It was just a person.
“Reggie…her foot.”
Glancing back, I wondered how I’d missed before that her left foot was bare. I was pretty sure I knew what Heather was talking about; something white and straight was wedged between two of her toes. Instantly, my mind went back to all the videos and pamphlets and every scrap of information that had been shoved down my throat about “just saying no” since I was in middle school. I knew what this was. Everyone would know what it was.
But I’d never seen it up close before…and I really wanted to.
I pulled my shoulder out of my friend’s tight grip and took quiet steps forward until I could kneel down and look the stranger in the face. Faintly I could hear some sneakers scuffing away behind me and I wondered if Heather was finally going to call for help or had run away instead. I could definitely see her doing the second and perhaps, eventually, coming back once the guilt got to her.
The woman didn’t look like a typical drug user in my eyes. She seemed sort of clean – aside from the puke that her face was pressed into, hair soaked through on the left side. You could see the trail of it running from her mouth. Once in a while she would breathe very shallowly then be still as a corpse again, other than some small flutterings behind her closed lids. But what struck me as odd was that she looked just like anyone else I might know. I was pretty sure I had the same jeans that she had on somewhere in my closet and what was left of her make-up was nice and neat. I studied her for a while, glancing at the needle still stuck in her foot only once out of curiosity. Just as I was thinking how grave the scene was, I spotted the scars on the one arm I could see. They were smooth and very dark on her pale skin, seeming to me like they could be wounds healed long ago, no new punctures to mingle among them.
I straightened up, thinking. Why had she chosen some place so open? If it were me, I would stay in the comfort of my own home so that when I couldn’t hold myself up any longer, at least I would have the comfort of a bed or couch to lie on. But I guessed, seeing the current situation before me, that comfort was a liquid burning inside of her to mask everything else. It was an emergency.
My foot poked at her hip. I might as well have been poking an actual dead person for all the response she gave. Again, one tiny rise of her chest led me to see that it hadn’t happened yet.
“This is an ugly way to go, don’t you think?”
Then the sirens came and I flipped around to see flashing red lights, dim in the day, careening around fifth street’s corner and up the avenue toward us. I stepped back away from the body and once my feet had blindly found the sidewalk again, I noticed Heather - arms crossed around her abdomen so tight it looked like she was trying to squeeze the air out of her own chest - standing just outside the entrance again. Her eyes were now focused on the vehicle coming this way. I guess she’d decided that the woman could do her no harm after all, that she was safe out here in the open.
“She’s not dead. Not yet, anyway.”
Heather looked at me with her eyebrows crinkled together almost into one solid line, but the funny thing was that her expression read more worried than angry.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I matched her expression without thinking about it.
“One day you’re going to make one of your stupid mistakes and it’ll backfire on you like you won’t believe. I have never met someone who acted so reckless for curiosity’s sake,” she huffed, then started stomping to where we parked the car earlier.
Apparently, she wasn’t willing to wait and see the EMTs load the addict into their white wagon which I found surprising. Nothing about this was interesting to her? I found that rather boring, which, in turn, was another tick on the list of “things-I-could-do-without” about my old pal.
I was quiet the whole car ride home while she fumed and rambled on about me regretting that little move because “what if I’d been stabbed with a dirty needle and gotten aids” or “all of it might have been a ruse to kidnap some nosey teen girl and she would never be able to stop them”. It was all over the top and highly silly, but I knew she wasn’t going to stop until I let her get all the excitement out of her system. She’d always been a frazzled and anxious sort of person. Maybe I should’ve remembered that…I doubted it would keep me from doing something like it again.
She parked in front of my house as if she almost forgot to stop. I still needed to get ready and the plan was I would drive myself to her parent’s dinner. I assumed beforehand when we were still deciding between throw pillows and a teapot that she might hang around for a while since there were still hours to go. Something about the word-vomit that had ensued for the last ten minutes solid made me change my thinking.
I cleared my throat and spoke over her, “Hey, Heather?”
Her hands were still gripping the tops of the steering wheel - because she drove like an old lady sitting on a wedge - and she turned my way with her jaw hanging down.
“Just for the sake of time…and let’s face it, I really don’t care that you can’t handle the sight of a barely overdosed junkie and some harmless puke, I will tell you why I went over to examine her in plain words.”
A gave it a beat while staring out the windshield at some kid riding his bike in lazy circles right in the center of the street. He nearly missed scraping the side of Mrs. George’s Volkswagen, then decided to move on.
“Curiosity was the biggest factor, but only because I’ve recently been spending some time with Ian Wright. You know what happened to his parents just like everyone else.”
She was still frozen in the same position, expression transforming to shocked confusion.
“Actually, I can’t get him to leave me alone so I fed him some brownies like…last Tuesday I think.”
Suddenly, she clamped her teeth together with a boney clack. It looked like her eyes might pop out of her skull.
“Naturally, I wanted to see what that looked like. Something like what happened to his parents. I wanted to see what he saw that day.”
It was odd. For once, I could feel fluttering in my chest. A nervousness about confessing my true motives out loud to anyone and especially to someone like Heather.
“Reggie, you know it was much worse for them, right,” she spoke up after several moments of highly uncomfortable silence.
“What do you mean?”
She swallowed and glanced to where the kid had been, “They were in there for days. I think it was a week or more. You didn’t see what Ian Wright saw, Regg. It’s not the same situation. The smell alone…”
Her voice broke off like her guts could heave any minute or she might cry. This, I thought, was totally unexpected from her. That little tick I’d put in my head was in danger of starting to fade.
“I’m just saying. Yes, I never thought that that is who you would start to spend your time with, but that guy’s been through a lot of sh-stuff. He’s been through a lot of stuff. It would be highly unlikely that either of us would share any of the same experiences as him in our entire lives. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Heather rarely got deep about anything and she definitely didn’t curse. I couldn’t even get it out of her when her biological father left her mom with total custody. We had been nine at the time so that could have been a factor, too.
“I’m shocked at you, Heather. I didn’t know you’d thought about this topic so much or even cared…especially not enough to say shit,” I chuckled, trying to hide my grin.
She caught the tone of my voice and glared over at me, punching me weakly in the leg before yelling at me to get out of her car.
I followed her command but paused before slamming the door behind me. Ducking and looking in at her, I added one more thing. She looked like she was just about to do the same.
“I’ve acknowledged all this, just so you know. I’m not dense and I’ve actually talked to the guy.”
“Just looking out for you, Regg,” she shifted the car into drive, “Remember though, this happened to him as a kid. That stuff never leaves. It molds you.”
With a nod, I shut the door and made my way around the hood to the walk that ran from my front door to the curb. I didn’t turn around to wave at her when I heard the engine rev off into the distance; I would be seeing her in a couple hours anyway.
Who knew Heather had a deep side? I mean, she was more than likely a better person than me, but two thirds of the time she was worried about things like what house she would spend Christmas in, her mom’s or dad’s, and which dress she would wear to a college interview. Our type of people acted a certain way and she had always been better at it.
What Does It Have to Do With Me?
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Chapman?” a male voice asked.
“Well, no. It's Ms. Chapman, never been married. Who is this?”
“Oh, I wasn’t sure I would catch you…or if this was even the right number.”
They fell silent on the other end of the line but I already knew exactly who it was, the voice surprisingly familiar even though it sounded like he was talking while sandpapering the transmitter. No one else in my acquaintance sounded that gruff in only two sentences.
“Ian? Where the heck are you calling from? I think something’s chewing on the phone wires.”
“Well, it’s a payphone. You still have that car, right?”
I twitched the curtains open peeking out the window, ready to see him standing across the street as if any time I decided to leave he would snatch me up. But like most of my mind anticipated, no one was there besides the Harper family’s dog doing its business on the other neighbor’s front lawn, right by the stoop like always.
Why was I suddenly a person of interest to him? There had to be someone else he could spend his time with or nag from. I wasn’t the only driver in town and certainly not the most interesting. We’d already had more points of disagreement than civility.
Parked in the drive all by its lonesome was my ugly little Escort, twelve years old and looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in all that time. The paint had even begun to chip near the driver’s side handle from the way I carried my keys but it ran like it was out of spite. I stared at the windshield and had the sudden urge to lie which I practically never did. I wanted to see what his reaction would be if I said I wasn’t readily available, at his beck and call, or even go overboard and mention a fake wreck. I was actually propped up on the couch with two broken legs.
I could say many things. Perhaps simply that I was busy.
Let’s just say now that I was pretty much never busy. If I tried to say this to anyone who was even an acquaintance they would most definitely bat an eye. But Ian didn’t know me, not enough to pick out a lie that way. He was watchful though and seemed to just pick out things. Someone who had been around the block enough to fill a small lifetime.
Against my better judgment and listening to the curious devil on my left shoulder, I said, “I don’t think that car will ever go away, not even if I tried to get rid of it. It’s like an angry, old aunt sticking around just to tease the relatives wanting her money.”
He kind of chuckled after a pause of silence and replied, “Anyway, I wasn’t going to call you first…”
But you did.
“…seeing as you’re kind of the most trustworthy person I know…”
Kudos to me.
“…I’m in a bit of a situation. Actually, I’m stuck in the aftermath of a situation.”
“What?”
He sighed heavily. The sound was exactly like the rush of a crackling fire from whatever wonky phone he was using.
“Could you possibly come find me?”
“Excuse me?” I exclaimed into the receiver. Flabbergasted, my voice rose close to three octaves.
Another huff. I could practically see the embarrassment that was on his features for having to ask me something like this.
“I need your help. There’s been some…trouble. Normally I wouldn’t get anyone roped into something like this, but I don’t have much of a choice.”
“And why is that?”
“I’ve been stabbed, a bit.”
The correct response to something like this is somewhere around questioning how this could have possibly happened or if the victim was near a hospital.
I turned away from the window and asked, “Where?”
“Where did the asshole stick the knife? Are you really asking that right now? I could be bleeding out in the street.”
“Obviously you’re not because you’re talking to me coherently.”
“Reggie, would you please just get in your car and drive to Hampstead. I’m by a payphone on James Street, near that graffiti telling passersby to do something pretty nasty with their mouth to part of someone called EZ Jay. Massive sign, you won’t miss it. If you do, just look for the lump on the ground and the blood pooling out beneath it.”
I stared wide-eyed at the worn corner of a Vogue magazine mom had bought ages ago and left in the basket by the stairs. That might have been the only time it was touched, right when it was bought.
“I have to drive all the way to Hampstead tonight.”
I didn’t ask this. I already knew I was involved. Nothing else needed done here - homework or otherwise - and knowing how I made decisions, there was no way I would leave him in the middle of that awful place to wait until lights out. Now, if he was just stuck there without a ride home, I would definitely let him walk, but this was important. This was an emergency.
“Wait. Why haven’t you called the cops or an ambulance, someone who isn’t over an hour away?”
For a moment, I thought he’d hung up or keeled over already. An image popped up in my head of me having to find his body while knowing he was already gone, a dead stare in his eyes looking off down a cold empty street with profanity painted behind his head. Or worse, if people had as little morals in that town as they always seemed to have, someone stole his body while I searched.
He coughed, making me cringe, and then answered, “What I was doing isn’t the best of things. Believe me, this would be safer.”
“If you’re dragging me into something-”
“Look, if you come, I’ll make you some brownies that will blow your mind…if I don’t lose anything vital that is.”
“Keep them. I just want to know the truth when I get there,” I said, hanging up.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d driven to that specific town. My feet stayed planted in the hall, not knowing where to go first. I knew I should probably find my keys for starters.
-
-
-
Ian was absolutely right. EZ Jay made sure not one person would miss his message. I just wondered why no one had tried to cover it up yet. He was there, leaning against the wall just beneath probably the worst word in Mr. Jay’s sentence. His scruff had definitely grown back, shadowing his jaw and making his face look slack. I could tell he was in pain just by looking at the scowl he wore as he watched a group of loud teens walk past in front of him. I rolled the passenger window down and pulled over at a stop, the car behind me honking obnoxiously. Ian didn’t notice me parked until I yelled.
“I think…you just might make it…”
He jolted which I found quite funny because I didn’t think anything made him jump at this point. With a deep cringe and grabbing his left side he limped to the door. When he was in and safe again - as safe as the Escort could be which I would say was eighty percent - I could see that other injuries had been inflicted. Someone had hit him hard in the cheekbone on the same side as the stab I hadn’t seen yet. It was clear that a lot of blood vessels had been busted. The forming bruise was huge, curving around his eye like a crescent on the cheek bone, swelling out wide.
“What the hell happened to you?”
He glanced at me surprised and like he would rather not say.
“Isn’t there some rule against you saying those words?”
“I like to think God is more worried about people stabbing each other,” I replied.
Just for good measure, I tapped the lock switch. That made him snicker just a little and just as quickly grab his side again.
“Can I see it?” I asked, pointing to his side.
“Why?”
“Because I’d really like to know if you’ll die in my car. I just cleaned this thing.”
He tossed a bottle at me, probably one he grabbed from the seat before he sat down. It clanked off the steering wheel before bouncing back down at his feet and rolling somewhere hidden.
“Seriously,” I nudged.
He looked sidelong at me with worn, measuring eyes. When he started to peel back his coat - a black coat I’d never seen on him before - I could already see the blood. It spread from the wound through the fabric of his t-shirt and across his chest, but where it came from was just under most of his ribs. The shirt was ruined and partially sticking to the wound that I was sure would look a lot worse if cleaned. Right then it was just a dark red, wet spot.
“You look like you’re going to puke. Are you sure you can drive?”
“Don’t ask if I’m okay, look at you! I have to take you to the hospital, Ian. This is stupid.”
“No,” he said loud and with finality.
I understood in that single note of his voice the authority he could call up. It was a sound commanding the indisputable fact of what was going to happen.
…But he didn’t know how intensely stubborn I could be, especially when someone was trying to tell me what to do. It was a nice try, though.
“Guess who has the keys. You’re going,” I stated, putting the child lock on the doors for extra help in my battle.
“I can easily get out of this car. That was a pathetic move,” he gestured to the lock, “All I have to do is bust out one of your windows, or really just overpower you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
We stared straight at each other with a silent war between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. He was determined to keep chugging on like nothing had happened and maybe he just didn’t care what came of it. But for some reason, I did. I decided, in order to get him to slow, I would budge.
“Fine,” I snapped the locks back up, “go then. What does it matter if you bleed out here or there? It’ll happen either way.”
He glared at the dash next like he wanted to murder it, chop it to pieces in a rage with an axe or anything that would break the black and beige plastic. Each second that we wasted he was pumping more blood out into the world. It was already starting to seep out and drip on the seat. I realized my heart was racing, actually worried he might step out and take my feigned threat as real.
“I called you because I needed your help,” he said, each syllable said precisely.
Then he met my eye steady, trying to convey something with a surprisingly honest look.
“What can I do?”
“You can drive. That’s all. Let me worry about the rest.”
I shook my head, turning to the busy road ahead of us. Cars whizzed by like there wasn’t a speed limit, each one with bits of their frames shaking like parts might fall off because of the immense amount of rust eating away.
“Reggie,” he said my name quietly.
“What?”
“I will be fine. Trust me.”
I couldn’t look at him; the moment seemed too close and intimate, especially for just having met each other a month ago. Instead, I jerked the gear shift and gassed it, speeding on down the rest of James Street to find my way home.
-
-
-
We had driven at least half way back to Clarion. I knew exactly where the closest hospital was and was ready to turn on a dime. Actually, I was secretly heading that way whether I meant to or not at the time. Super glue and some thread were not going to put him back together.
I glanced over quickly to see how he was doing. Not a word had been spoken since we left the street I found him on. He was leaning the top of his head back on the seat behind him, eyes shadowed like he could use a nap. There was definitely a sick, pale color pulling on his complexion. My mind was probably exaggerating things, but the ticking sound I continued to hear for the five minutes that passed left an image in my mind of blood collecting beside his seat which was driving me crazy.
That was it. I waited until the next exit came and took it.
Ian’s head lolled my way, his mouth in a frown.
“Where are we going?”
“For starters I’m going to make sure you don’t die, then I thought about a Big Mac. We’ll see where the day takes us.”
“Reggie, what the fuck! I just said I needed a ride. Do you have to make a big deal out of everything?”
“Hey! Guess what,” I shouted back, jerking his coat away so he could see the mess, “You ruined my upholstery so now I’ll ruin your evening. You’re going to the emergency room. Shut up and take it like a man, shithead.”
“This isn’t about - you don’t know what I was doing when this happened. If I get caught…”
He was biting his tongue then but I didn’t know if it was to hold back a string of curses, to keep from hitting something, or just not wanting to divulge his secrets. He could’ve wanted to do all three. He did seem murderous.
With a long exhale he added, “Please, just take me home. There’s a first aid kit there.”
“You’re not going to make it with a band-aid.”
Another furiously betrayed expression in my side view. The big problem with this new plan I started on was getting him out of the car once we parked. I needed to be persuasive, not argumentative.
“All you have to do is lie. They see so many different wounds a day, they don’t really care where it came from unless it’ll give you tetanus or something. Tell the nurse you fell on some glass, anything really. It can’t be too deep because you’re still breathing.”
After that Ian wouldn’t talk. He clammed up like I couldn’t be trusted ever again even though my idea was pretty good. People lie at hospitals all the time. They don’t ask questions about why the toy soldier is stuck in your son’s ear or how you broke your leg playing a video game; everyone just blurts out the explanation in pain or from nerves. I was positive at least half of them were lies.
I pulled into the packed lot, taking the loop around the front of the building that read emergency in great big red letters. Hospitals always had red somewhere. You would think it was too scary a color to see when rolling in on a gurney.
There were no empty spots anywhere near the front entrance so I parked probably a mile away, which would make dragging Ian in even harder. The engine clicked off and I pulled the key from the ignition turning to his angry posture in the passenger seat.
He was pointedly glaring out the window like he thought about slamming his head through the glass. If he did that, I could just call for help and my issues would be solved.
“Ian.”
His hand twitched where it rested on his knee, the fingers scrunching just slightly. Somehow the level of hate on his face went up another notch in the reflection.
“Just do it, okay? For me. I’m a big ‘ole Christian that can’t have your death on their conscience. Imagine the talk in town when people hear you bled out in Reggie Chapman’s front seat. You’re supposed to be a badass. I once heard someone say you bit a security guard’s ear off. Do you really want this to be the way you go out?”
He tried not to snort when I mentioned the guard but a little one escaped and I could see his resolve weakening. Plus, it’s hard to be stubborn when you’re in a situation of pain like he was. There was another moment of silence. With a swift jerk he shoved the door open, crawled out grimacing, and slammed the door behind him. He wasn’t going to wait for me to follow and started striding to the automatic doors.
Right in the middle of the lane when a Nissan started turning around the corner, Ian stopped, spinning around to look at me like he had something important to say. I was too far away to grab his sleeve and jerk him to the curb. The driver laid on their horn which Ian promptly ignored.
“Hang on, how do you expect me to pay for whatever whoever does in there? You’re always assuming I’m homeless anyway.”
“Did you get your money before you were stuck through?” I asked, matter-of-fact.
He gave me a pointed look as I pulled him out of the road. The driver held up a lovely signal for us as they sped away.
“Don’t worry about it,” I shook my head, “I’ll help you out if I have to.”
The next moment his sleeve was jerked out of my grip and he was staring at me with the expression he seemed to be reserving for my presence; disgusted and like I’d insulted his ancestors. He must have been willing to drop it fairly easy enough because he stopped aiming his scuffed and bruised face toward me.
We were almost where the handicapped people parked when I was suddenly aware of his appearance - minus the blood he couldn’t help being covered in. The last time I’d seen him he had tried at least a little to be presentable. His hair wasn’t mussed because of sleep but trying to look purposefully wild, he’d shaven, and although they were definitely not brand new in the slightest, his clothes must have been clean; there wasn’t the cigarette and street smell wafting off of them that there was here. Now he was a mess. Is this what he was like the rest of the time, I wondered, and was his cleaning up supposed to mean something else?
I tried not to worry too much about it - even though my family dressed up just to eat out on weekends - because it was time to start lying. The receptionist peered up at us from her little glass cage. She had a look about her. It was the look of someone who absolutely loathed their job and would end up disappearing one random day. Everyone would find out she’d run away to Florida or someplace where it was acceptable to let her freak flag fly. I kind of wanted to tip her but I don’t think you’re supposed to do that with receptionists.
What I found hilarious about the ordeal was that we had to wait. Ian was literally bleeding out onto their carpet and “Tracy” made us sit in the squeaking, ripped cushion chairs you took when you had the flu, the same as fifty other people who needed to be seen.
The part of the day that was not so funny was when I took a short trip to the bathroom while they were stitching him up and came back to an empty bed.
“Um,” I walked to the closest nurse messing with stacks of color tabbed pages, “did you see the guy that was here leave.”
“What guy?”
She had to be one of those cranky nurses that you couldn’t be mad at because no matter how rude they were they were twice as good at their job. I could just see it in the lines of her makeup free face and the slump of her shoulders. Impatiently, she tapped her pen on the counter, jutting her chin out like my explanation was taking up too much of her time.
“The dude with the stab wound on his ribs. He was right here,” I pointed to the open curtain.
“Do you know how many people we get in here in a day that have been stabbed, shot, or beaten?”
I just sort of stared at her amazed and replied, “No. No, I do not.”
Clearly, she was not willing to help me out with this. I waited on the mattress until someone familiar showed up. Ian had paid his bill outright and left without another word. I had no idea where he was or how he would get home, and at that point I wasn't sure if I felt like searching for him.
I did anyway, as was becoming the pattern with our duo.
No one on the way out of the building remembered the description I gave them: five-elevenish, somewhat short brown hair, blue eyes, and the looks of a young oil rigger who wants his money back. Not any receptionists or patients waiting to be patients had seen him, or more than likely, they just didn’t care. I searched the surrounding blocks, driving around and wondering if he’d decided to walk, but seeing that he paid his bill on the spot he must’ve had some kind of cash on hand. I gave up next to a McDonalds, five streets over from where we last saw each other. As I pulled back on the interstate - Big Mac in hand of course - I decided something. Ian Wright was only going to get help if he wanted it.
Shit
“Pssst.”
I’d been staring off at the blackboard without realizing it. Everyone else in class had their heads down, studying and scribbling away, but I was in a daze brought on by lack of sleep and a long day. The voice that broke my mild brooding came from behind. I wasn’t even sure I remembered who sat back there most days. I was always looking ahead without even a little bit of wonder at those who’d chosen the last rows, usually to hide their disinterest in the class itself.
I blinked my bleary eyes and spun around. The first person I spotted only caught my eye because of what they were doing. I believe his name was Ed or something, he was the ripe old age of seventeen like me and his finger was jammed up his left nostril. He glanced up quick and saw the disgusted look on my face, a frown that pulled the corners of my mouth way down to practically my jawline. With a jerk, the finger was dislodged. He sniffed and tried to hide his face in the hood of his jacket. It amazed me what people did when they simply forgot they were in a room full of others.
“Hey, pssst,” the voice whispered harshly.
A wad of notebook paper bounced off the side of my skull from further back. Clearly, Ed hadn’t been the culprit. He was busy with other activities.
There were three chairs directly behind mine. The two immediate ones were unoccupied - not that I could remember if anyone was missing or they were always like this - but in the last against the back wall was Anna Reeve, staring at me like I was a deaf idiot and she had something important to say. I didn’t usually agree with her fashion choices and that day was no different. This was not exactly the place for a low-cut, V-neck camisole, especially because the room had to have been barely near sixty degrees.
I watched her for a moment trying to convey how much I didn’t want her attention with a steady eye and utterly disinterested expression. She didn’t really take the hint which wasn’t a surprise, so when she continued to gaze at me and chomp her gum I mouthed, “What?”
In return, she brought her hand up to her ear in a mock gesture of a telephone and failed to whisper, “Check your phone.”
Obviously, I didn’t want to and sadly, I did anyway. I tugged the chipped silver device out of my back pocket and opened the screen. Under the table it lit up like a green flare that I hoped no one else noticed.
One message under the name “Ugh” - which I’d put a long time ago to warn myself away from her terribly long conversations that went absolutely nowhere - read:
Need A Ride After School
Gotta Tell You Something
For a single second I looked at the screen with intense disdain. Then I quietly slammed my head on the desk.
I felt a tiny buzz in the palm of my hand and dragged myself off the tabletop to look down again at one more message from the same person.
Like You Had Something Else to Do
I wanted to text back, “Go fuck yourself,” but I didn’t bother. She’d probably only laugh.
I was in my car way before Anna showed up. The heater was filling the space quickly, to the point of making me sweat beneath my jacket. I pondered over the idea of turning it off and rolling the windows down just to freeze her out when she came, but I knew that wouldn’t work. The only thing that could get rid of her was the promise of something free somewhere and she already got it from this car ride home.
I was staring off at the left side of the school where the ball fields were when she jerked the door open. She’d been smart enough to at least put a light jacket on. I pictured the two of us sitting there beside each other, the contrast of it in my mind so funny that I had to chuckle in spite of myself. Anna always had to wear something with a flash of color and most of my wardrobe consisted of old t-shirts, jeans, and the occasional basic long sleeve, never anything brighter than maroon or faded yellow. Next to me she was practically neon, and sometimes literally was. Not only in clothes were we starkly different; our basic nature was opposing. This was something that shone almost comically, especially in our faces. Hers was always clear and undisturbed, never showing a blemish or any discoloration from stress or tiredness in the intensely pale skin. I was sure, even that day, that there were massive dark circles under my eyes, but I was proud of the tan I could somewhat hold onto in the winter months. If I had to guess on first meeting us, I would’ve said she was given everything in life, not I. Her dyed blonde hair, expertly done, and simply the way she walked would alone attest to that. Meanwhile, my slightly fried brown hair screamed neglect from its twisted bun and I assumed I had the gate of a waitress after a long shift from the mirrors I’d walked by in the past.
All of this didn’t exactly irk me. Like I said, I chuckled at it in the moment.
“Guess what I did,” were the first words from her mouth.
A wiggle of her bleached eyebrows and a smirk led me to believe it wouldn’t be anything good…or at least not virtuous.
“Overthrew a government and bought a house in Fiji with the loot.”
The brows stopped wiggling and scrunched together. She didn’t catch my joke. The humor was lost and it was a moment before she remembered what excited her so much to bother me. The smirk grew back easily.
“Ian Wright.”
“What about him?” I asked, hiding my concern.
“What do you think?”
She was hinting at something I hoped I was wrong about, but with each passing second her smile widened to crinkle her eyes. Her pearly white teeth were showing, every one too square, her lips too puffy for me to ever think she was pretty with all that gloss smeared on them.
Something unexpected was happening as I allowed myself to believe what they’d done. My head was heating up as if a boiler kicked on inside. That weird feeling in my stomach that always showed when I had to take the Escort to a mechanic puffed alive; it was always at its highest when they tried to tell me ten other things were wrong with it even though I’d come in for an oil change or a new set of tires.
There was something I wanted to do right then but I couldn’t tell if it was violent or pitiful.
“Are you going to drive or stay here until everyone’s left the lot?”
I stared ahead. There had been so many times that I wanted to kick her out of my car, a billion occurrences of her walking toward me and me wanting to take the palm of my hand to her face and shove her away. I’d always just dealt with it knowing eventually she’d be distracted. She would have to go home where someone would feed her or something. I listened to the much-too-detailed conquest stories and stayed trapped when she just wouldn’t stop ranting about the questionable friends she had or the parents she couldn’t get away from. When we were little I once hid in the dryer for an hour because Mrs. Reeve had dropped Anna off at our house on a playdate, leaving with mom for somewhere. She thought we were playing hide-and-seek. She sucked at seeking.
But this time, after all these years, I was not myself. I was not Reggie Chapman, patient and unagitated. I was the ugliness that had built up inside without a meter or sign to warn anyone that it was even there.
“Get out before I fucking kick you out.”
“Wha-”
“Seriously, I will open that door and drag you out by your hair.”
For the first time, Anna Reeve looked afraid of something she’d caused. She gaped at me before realizing that I wasn’t joking by the glare I was stabbing at her. Her hand fumbled at the handle pulling at it, but there was only a dull thud each time.
“It’s-It’s locked…,” she whispered, continuing to tug.
Deliberately, I reached over and pushed the button. Once she was free to do so, Anna was out of the car in a blink, leaving so frantically that the door didn’t even click shut behind her. As I watched her almost jog back down the walk the other way, it started to rain. The next moment, I started to giggle. It was nice to finally be free.
Now, after the laughter left my system, I reached over and closed the door. Then I remembered what had caused my blow up to begin with.
It wasn’t as dramatic as I know most people would wish it to be. I didn’t drive home to find Ian, regretful and sullen, sitting on my doorstep to tell me all of what he’d done even though I’d warned him. I didn’t try to find where he lived so I could work out my strange emotions with some light strangulation or a hard smack to his head. This was not some normal relationship between us or even a twisted, romantically inclined yearning thing. The simple fact was, I went home alone and changed to go running downtown. We continued to not see one another for at least another two weeks, if I remember correctly. Anna Reeve never spoke to me directly again. A wonderful thing.
As I jogged the rectangular block of the park - something I hadn’t done since I quit track in junior high - my agitated mood didn’t subside. If anything, the feelings grew. I think I was mostly angry because of who he’d chosen and that my words had been swept to the side. What drove me to this was the fact of what I’d done for him voluntarily, only to be rewarded by silence and disdain on his end and the repulsive events I’d just heard about.
I’d just saved his life for God’s sake…well, I forced him to the ER at least.
“Aye, Chapman! You run like an old man!”
I whipped around in time to clip the raised chunk of concrete in the sidewalk I’d already sidestepped going around twice. Down I went, using my right side as a buffer. The wet pavement scraped into the exposed skin of my calf and knee, digging into my shoulder hard with a sharp crack. I laid there numbly until I heard the thudding of quick steps arriving from behind me. When I looked up with a wince, Grant was leaning over me shaking his head. He was wearing his “dad clothes”, spotted here and there by the sprinkling we’d only stopped getting a minute ago.
I rolled over to my other side to get the leverage to stand using my good arm. Grant’s hand grabbed it and hauled me up without a word.
“Did you break something?” he asked, leading me to a low bench.
“I feel like breaking your nose. Does that count?”
He hissed between his teeth, his eyes on my injured leg.
“You tore that up pretty good. Since when do you go jogging? Since when do you wear shorts?” he asked, dumbfounded.
I reached out and smacked the side of his head trying to stand. I was pretty sure I left at least part of a first aid kit in my trunk. He stopped me by grabbing my shoulder and shoving me back down. My butt was starting to get wet through my pants from the rain-soaked seat.
“Are we just going to sit here and stare at my wounds all evening?”
Pulling his eyes away from the scrapes I’d accumulated, he seemed to break into action. His arm slid under mine and step by step we made it slowly to my car where he sat me down in the driver’s seat after I fumbled for the keys in the wrong pocket with the hand I could use.
“Check in the back for dad’s old tackle box. It’s kind of puke green.”
“Nice,” he mumbled and disappeared.
The back of the car clicked open, sucking another gust of cold air into the vehicle from outside. Everything smelled like the floor of a forest.
“Is this it,” he held it up over the seats for me to see.
I nodded and then the next minute my brother was plastering Band-Aids and ointment willy-nilly on the side of my leg without supervision. There was something else that had come to my mind - a few things really - that distracted me from correcting his work.
“Shouldn’t you be at your job? Why are you at the park in the middle of the day, anyway?”
He shrugged, slapping another one on where there weren’t even scrapes. I stared down at the top of his head, his hair somewhere between the dark shades I’d inherited from our Dad and Mom’s used-to-be blonde. He didn’t answer immediately, focusing his eyes on chopped up grass and dead leaves under the bench.
“I was seeing a lawyer.”
His eyes peeked up at me but I was waiting for more information.
With a sigh he added, “I’m getting a divorce.”
I don’t want to be a know-it-all but I immediately thought of how I saw it coming.
“From Grace.”
“Well, I didn’t think you meant from your big toe.”
“You’re not surprised about this at all.”
“It wasn’t like you guys were really all that happy, Grant. At least, she wasn’t…not that most people could ever tell because her face is perpetually stink-lipped.”
He grimaced and looked at me sideways. My mouth was running without a filter again. I was noticing that more and more with each passing day.
“Sorry, but I never liked her. You two made a cute baby though. My plan was just to make sure Riley didn’t get ruined by her side of the family, which this whole deal might make a little easier, I think.”
“Why didn’t I hear this when we were engaged, or hell, while we were dating?!”
I looked at him with a raised brow and said, “I don’t think you would’ve wanted me doing that with all the fun you were having at the time. People rarely ask my opinion on things anyway.”
“I could have been sleeping with a nicer, better person at least. When has a lack of interest ever stopped you from speaking your mind? The only good thing that came out of it was Riley.”
I did something unusual for me and laid a hand on his shoulder where he knelt in front of my bruised, scratched up knees. His whole form seemed to sag forward, like he was letting go of the façade. I could see in the fresh lines of his almost thirty-year-old face that he was pretending it didn’t bother him. Play acting that he never really loved Grace, but despite all the reasons he shouldn’t he still did.
I didn’t know why.
“So, what’s going to happen?”
He reached over and snapped the tackle box shut before answering.
“I have no freaking idea.”
Then he got to his feet and pulled me up with him. Just as a simple idea to maybe make him feel better, I asked one more thing.
“Wanna come home for some brownies?”
He smirked and asked with fake exasperation, “Why do you always have brownies somewhere?”
“Just in case times like these occur. Actually, that’s a lie. I have an addiction that Mom unknowingly funds.”
Murphy’s Law
Then came a day - one of those lovely days - when everything went wrong.
My life may seem to anyone reading this, somewhat dysfunctional but miraculously it’s still somehow steadily boring. Remember, what you see is only what I’ve shown you and this was in the top five of exciting times of my life. Not to mention, I’m listing everything that has to do with Ian who is generally explosive himself. He had a popcorn effect. Most days were plain, humdrum, the kind of stuff that gave you no reason to ever record them unless you were self-absorbed or writing an extremely detailed autobiography. But if Ian happened to touch the day or any surrounding, there was something worth putting down on paper. He does make an appearance in this section after quite a long hiatus, but I can’t really say he was directly to blame for the chain of disasters dragging a path through October thirtieth. I can’t say either that he was much help at all, and that’s where we get our result.
I do not love people, let me tell you that right now. Yes, I find some of them interesting and there are obviously exceptions to this truth to be found in some family and the few friends that wiggled their way, if ever so fleetingly, into my skin. All of this comes to mean that being in a large group of other humans does not give me pleasure. No, wait. That just sounds a little wrong. What I mean is crowds do not make me comfortable and I practically have to become a different person - Reggie Chapman instead of just Reggie - to deal. One on one and I’m fine.
In the late morning of the thirtieth the crowd that surrounded me was massive. Now, I’m not talking Woodstock big, I mean county fair concert in central Ohio big. It was enough to give anyone feelings of claustrophobia. The reason why - some sort of labor strike - I didn’t find out until I’d escaped. All I could think about was that I needed to be on the other side of it. At about the moment I was really absorbed by the herd though was when someone grabbed my bag.
At the beginning of the year, I’d decided it was time to buy a true backpack. There were many reasons behind the purchase which I won’t bore anyone with, but the ironic bit was theft prevention. I thought that, hey, if it was strapped to my shoulders then no one could tear it off of me easily. Well, they didn’t…not easily at least. One strap was hanging loose as I dove into the thrall of angry people, loud with their buzz of conversations. No one had ever mugged me before. Our town wasn’t that big and since everyone knew my family took up quite a bit of it, I thought no one would even try. Whoever it was didn’t get that message because one second, I was squeezing past a tree-sized person and their two whining kids and the next I was on the ground. My head was heavy and my back was light.
A large, black boot almost came crashing down on my fingers. I pulled them back just in time, but as I tried to stand my legs wobbled under the weight of the rest of me. With a perturbed shout I went tumbling into a woman who felt squishy against my shoulder and smelled strongly of lilacs.
“Excuse me!”
The words were nasally in my ear, the tone quite irritated. Pulling a “Reggie Chapman” move instead of the usual me - because this was most definitely a fight or flight moment - I gave her a cold look down my nose. This stare was good for about anything, whether you wanted a discount in a store like how my grandmother used it or to shove people back when they were getting a little bit out of hand as I’d just done. She had to be at least three times my age but somehow it had made her clam up. Her eyes darted away from mine as she tried to let the rolling crowd drag her anywhere but our spot.
I turned away, remembering why I’d run into her in the first place. Suddenly panicked, I reached behind me, fumbling only air and the hood of my coat. I made a circle in place stretching my neck and searching for any sign of the black bag but all I found was that it made my head pulse and spin. I shuffled along, shoving and glaring my way through until I found a gap where I could breathe. On the edge of it, where the people started to scatter in fewer gatherings, I saw where my bag had gone. I couldn’t tell who it was because their face was mostly covered by a grey scarf and the hood of their sweatshirt, but I could definitely tell they weren’t much bigger than me. They were also digging into the sections of the backpack, pocketing whatever looked valuable.
I had nothing to defend myself with and I knew I wouldn’t find anything around me. It didn’t stop me from looking and believing that if given the chance, I could probably take them. Unless I was going to tear off someone’s arm though and beat him with it, I would have to use pure feistiness and surprise. Honestly, I didn’t plan it out in my head because seeing his filthy hands dig around in my things filled me with rage which catapulted me forward like a mad cat. I could’ve gone about it all a little more stealthily…obviously, I didn’t.
Whoever he was, he slipped out of my fingers like a snake. I had one hand firmly gripped around the bag’s strap and the other landed a hard hit to the side of his face, but the scarf took most of the blow and it probably wasn’t as good a hit as I thought. A second passed where our eyes met, him blinking in surprise, and then he backhanded me with his fist. I landed like a felled tree. The bag was out of my hands and my ear was ringing. The world looked like it was on a twirling top and each time I started to get up, pushing off the cold concrete, it spun even faster to the point I thought I might vomit.
“Shit,” I gasped out.
A pair of hands slid beneath my arms, lifting me up at the armpits. Everything became so blurred that I gave up and closed my eyes.
“Oh, no. No. Just leave me on the ground,” I muttered, but I was already leaning against something flat and cold.
When I opened my eyes, the spinning had slowed only a little. I was propped up against the window of the shop I’d fallen in front of. I blinked hard without it helping and stared up at an old man that kind of reminded me of my grandfather, only because of his thick, grey mustache and burly figure. Anything else about him was moving around too much to really be seen accurately.
“Are you alright, girl?”
“Ugh,” I said, grasping the ledge of the window frame and sliding a bit.
“Chapman, aren’t ya? What’re you doin on the ground in front of a liquor store?”
Of course, it was a liquor store, and as to knowing almost exactly who I was, that wasn’t a surprise. It’d been happening my whole life and I’d stopped wondering why when I noticed a picture of my face next to anyone from the generation above my dad and uncles; apparently, the semi-flattened nose and perpetually pissed expression skipped all of them.
“A man…did you see someone running with a black backpack?”
He sort of grunted and thoughtfully looked above me. The revolutions his face was taking had gotten old long ago. Each time I tried to will my eyes into focusing I would only get a split second of the image in front of me.
“I think I did…yeah…he went off a little that way carrying the thing to his chest, all fidgety with his face wrapped up,” he explained, pointing off down the sidewalk on my right.
The thief just happened to be traveling the same direction I’d been going. With a weak shove, I pushed off the glass behind me and stumbled forward only to fall into the stranger’s rough worker’s jacket. He caught me gently before mumbling some concerning words I promptly ignored. I was on a mission even if I had to crawl there. This made the odds of me catching him slim to none, I knew, but I had to try for several reasons. Highest among those being the prized possession of my laptop being in there and I was as stubborn headed as a mule.
I made it two blocks before I gave up and passed out on a bench.
The crowd I’d left behind me. I think I only woke up because someone was nudging at my limp boot with a purpose. What I expected - and the reason I jerked up so violently from my slumped state - was that the shoe was being taken just as my bag had. There was no telling what could go on when a roaring mob of people had gathered not too far off.
A spinning smile met my eye before I couldn’t take it any longer and laid my head back on the bench seat.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been experimenting without me?”
“I think I’d like to cut you,” I grumbled at the fancy street-tree to my left, “I can’t find he-who-took-my-things so I’ll just settle for you.”
“Don’t be so harsh, Chapman,” he replied.
I finally looked up and wondered if my eyes were rolling as they seemed to be. I was pretty sure I had a concussion and didn’t know why I’d only just then realized that fact. A brown curl hooked across his forehead, escaping from the rest. Even unable to focus I could tell he’d given up on trying to look respectable on my account, or at least he hadn’t known we’d run into each other.
“Were you going to steal my shoe?”
He stared at me puzzled. As long as I didn’t budge at all I could see him somewhat steadily, but even a blink wanted to set it all off again.
“You thought I would take your shoe? Why would I need it?”
“Felt like it,” I mumbled, probably staring straight too much to be considered normal.
“Well…I wasn’t. What are you doing?”
I pulled my eyebrows together but didn’t reply. A pounding had begun in my head and for some reason I just kept breathing harder, making the boom, boom of it grow louder and louder. It was rather a stupid idea and hurt quite a bit.
Then he reached over and smacked me on the cheek.
“Stop that.”
I groaned and said, “I have a concussion. You could’ve just murdered me.”
“You are very dramatic,” he said seriously and then knelt, “How did that happen?”
I was paying more attention to the memory of my brother that Ian’s position presented now. He was crouched right at my feet just as Grant had been when I’d fallen, when he’d told me about the divorce. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much of a good idea it was not when I’d originally thought it was wonderful. Riley would have to live with the consequences too and he wasn’t even old enough yet to understand it. This would be his norm growing up.
“Hey,” he smacked me lightly again, a question in his expression.
“Mugger…I tried to…get my stuff back.”
I thought he might look angry at this revelation. But then after listening, he started to laugh. When he wouldn’t stop, I shoved myself off the back of the bench clumsily and managed to box him right in the ear and this time my shot must’ve been pretty good. He jumped back cursing, opening and closing his jaw as if to test his hearing.
“Dammit! I was thinking of helping you, Reggie, but not anymore. You can just sit there until someone who cares finds you.”
“I don’t need help. Just because I’m resting you think I can’t get my bag back on my own? Think again, jackass. I’ll be up and running in a minute.”
“Oh sure! Looks like you were getting real far.”
He started walking away, crossing the street. I grabbed the first thing I could think of, my boot, and started tearing it off my foot to throw. Before I could wind up and try to aim it right, he called back another retort.
“Don’t worry if you can’t find whatever was so important. You can just buy one in every color.”
I let the shoe fly. Miraculously, it thumped him right in the shoulder. Laughter flew out of me like I’d sprung a leak. I was tumbling off the bench and I didn’t care about that either, or the fact that some old lady with a charcoal black wig was watching me with frightened eyes. Her little pink purse was clenched tightly in front of her. I didn’t know how much of a threat I looked to be, falling to the concrete like I was.
Then, with my face pressed against the ground that I was sure had been peed on by more than a few mammals, I watched the brown boot with its laces dangling get run over by a hulking truck with “big hips”, as I usually called them. I might’ve started to cry right then. I can’t quite recall.
Ian was gone again. I had to face the facts that I was in no condition to get justice of any kind. I no longer had a wallet which meant no change for a payphone, if this area even had one. I was pretty sure it did not.
A woman with a fancy baby stroller rolled by. I could’ve been an actual pile of dirt when I called out, “excuse me,” for how much attention she paid. Next was a line of burly men in clothes I would peg for lumberjacks or people with a fetish for plaid. They were too loud among themselves laughing at a joke that I only caught the tail end of but could tell was quite dirty. The little old lady passed once more and this time was so far out of reach, avoiding me to walk back to her car, that it was comical. She almost crushed the fender of a red Volvo parked closest to her spot and then sped off.
I sat up on the pavement, still dizzy and highly irritated. All I’d wanted to do today was get some photos developed and look around a bit with the freedom of no homework or errands to run. The shop that always printed my snapshots for me was back the way I’d come and the film canisters probably far in the other direction.
I stared at my smooshed shoe in the middle of the street. The sight of it made me angry, made me want to run over and kick it all the way home, and made me want to sit there and watch wheels go over it again and again until the day was black and my parents might finally have noticed that I never made it home. But I knew they wouldn’t. I’d just thrown a boot at the only person who had noticed where I was or wasn’t. This would be a solo survival, not that it was so much of a serious situation. I just wanted to be dramatic for once and pretend that these things even happened to me, that I could disappear and have someone care.
That thought shot a bolt through me. There’s always a point when you’re talking to yourself that you realize you’ve gone too far. You sort of shake your head and say, “Okay. We’ve dug too deep now. Let’s get back to the norm.” That was it.
I hauled myself up and moved on like I always did.
It was a wobbly way home until I realized I wasn’t going in the right direction. So really, it was a wobbly way to my aunt’s house.
My aunt is named Debby and as you might think of someone with that name, she kind of sucks. There’s not even a more sophisticated “-borah” at the end and she won’t let you call her Deb for short. Just Debby. I’m pretty sure she was an accident and I can say that because I was too…in a way. I always like to think of her as my mom’s semi-evil twin, even though they’re three years apart. She doesn’t bother to dye her hair back to its childhood shade like mom does and lets her face fall into the bitterness she is inside. Normally, unless my uncle was home - her complete opposite and actually fun to be around - I would walk right on by until I hit my grandfather’s house and hope someone was there. But these times were tough and it took a good bit of strength just to make it where I was. Also, my uncle had died three years before which meant that was about how long it had been since I’d really seen her.
I paused where I was, directly across the street from the Tudor-looking house with absolutely zero landscape appeal anymore besides a green lawn. I really didn’t want to knock on the door. In the back of my throat I made a weird groan, weakly hopping from one foot to the other and deciding whether I should try and go a little further or not. And then, because when was she ever not spying on her neighborhood, she saw me through her peeping window.
“Reggie Chapman, are you bleeding?” She yelled out the front door, the exact color of a chocolate bar which made my stomach growl.
If I was, I hadn’t realized it so I called back, “I don’t know. Am I?”
“Don’t be a smart ass and get over here.”
It was funny having her shout everything across the street and I thought about pretending I couldn’t walk over so she’d have to keep on doing it. The headache was pulsing in waves by then though, so I saved myself the trouble and slowly rambled over in what was definitely not a straight line.
“Reggie, if you’re drunk at eleven in the morning, I’m going to have to call your mother,” she crowed in a funny, thick sort of accent that somehow she had when my mother didn’t.
I was close enough that it would take me three steps to walk in the front door. She didn’t budge from her stern position in front of it.
“So, if this were afternoon you wouldn’t do anything?”
“You better watch that mouth of yours, Reggie Chapman.”
“Oh my God! Stop saying my name over and over like it’s a sin,” I exclaimed in proper, defiant teenage fashion.
She crossed her arms and stared stonily at me with those beady blue eyes of hers. I was pretty sure she would never be able to handle children of her own, so it was a good thing it was too late for her to actually give birth. The longer I stood the worse my head was getting. My otherwise easy temper was pretty short.
“You know, I just need a phone, maybe a CAT scan and then I’ll be good. Totally out of your hair as soon as I have a doctor.”
Obviously, she didn’t find this funny but used it as ammunition to never stop talking.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
People were saying that a lot.
“What did you do, fall off your bike again? Why are you always showing up in weird situations? Your mom told me you’ve been hanging out with some questionable people. Did they do this to you? Were you hazed because we can probably sue?”
She was coming at me rapid-fire. I fought the urge to simultaneously shake my head in confusion and grab her mouth to make it stop.
“Look,” I sort of slumped to the front stoop, curling up on my side, “I’m just gonna lay down now. You do you, Deb.”
“What,” she screeched above me, sounding sincerely astonished.
“Shhh, you’re so loud,” I whispered, my eyes closing.
With a noise of disapproval, she said, “Reggie, you can’t fall asleep on my porch.”
“It’s a stoop, Deb. Don’t make it something it isn’t.”
Another sound came from her throat, meant to convey exasperation I think and coming off as a hairball lodged in there. I did not budge. I was done moving for a while because it just seemed to be making everything worse. My mission now was to be as still as a stone so that the universe might not spot and punish me more for whatever it was I’d done to be cursed with the day.
“This is ridiculous.”
And then Debby disappeared into the house. I let my lids open to watch the clouds float by in the sky. A thought had passed through my mind that I still remember because it’d been repeating in my mind since I was around seven and still does. Looking up into the blue and white it seemed illegal to be below seventy degrees and sunny at the same time. The sky should always be a warning of the temperature.
A ridiculously concerned voice popped up above and behind me again saying, “…don’t know. She just showed up with some scrapes and fell asleep out front. Honestly, Isla I don’t have time for this…what am I supposed to do.”
Then a pause where I could barely hear that she was on the phone with another female voice. I wasn’t going to bother defending myself. Anything with my aunt was like talking to a dictator with no country.
“Yes, I understand that, but she’s old enough to be considered an adult…well, this wouldn’t be an issue to anybody if she wasn’t left alone since the age of ten. If there was only someone - don’t be stupid, Isla. Maybe you should actually be the mother she needs instead of pawning her off on me.”
Oh, that was good. I wouldn’t be laying here all afternoon. Debby would be kicking me to the street. She had something coming though, not even speaking of the hell I could already hear mom giving her on the other end of the line. If she thought I wouldn’t lay right on the sidewalk like a carcass in front of her house then she was quite wrong. Nobody liked to mess with my family like I did.
I heard a couple more loud and serious tones from the receiver, followed by a single electronic chirp. Not that they were usually very friendly toward one another, they now wouldn’t be talking to each other for weeks…maybe screaming unintelligibly, but not technically conversing.
“It seems I’m stuck with you either way.”
I rolled over on my back and looked up at her. It was a perfect view up her nostrils until she tucked her chin to meet my eye. At some point since we’d last met she’d chopped her hair off even shorter. It showed how many more greys had popped up in a sort of hydra effect. That’s what I kept staring at instead of her face, especially where they were cropping above her ears.
I wondered what she had to be so hateful about. I don’t think I’d ever thought about this. Everyone just dealt with her attitude. But lately, I was beginning to see people for their reasons or at least try to. She had a home. She had a family, even though she was trying her damnedest to push them away. Nothing was out of reach that I could pinpoint. I knew it wasn’t that she’d wanted kids because she made it very clear that they were like little black holes, sucking their parents dry. There was also the fact that she agreed I was a mistake in everything she did. It all might’ve drawn down to my uncle being gone. This theory didn’t really work though when I remembered she’d always been like this.
“Hey, Deb.”
“Don’t call me Deb, please. You know it’s Debby.”
I rolled up on my butt to look at her better and repeated, “Hey, Deb. Who peed in your cornflakes?”
“What? Reggie, you need to stop being childish and get up. There’s probably something else wrong with you,” she said, like she was amazed there could possibly be an addition to the list.
So, in the spirit of the day, I replied with something a little more fitting to how I actually felt rather than what was expected of me.
“You know, Deb…don’t worry about it. I think you should really focus on getting that briar patch pulled out of your ass. I mean, I would be that much of a bitch too if all those thorns were poking around my colon.”
And then I got up as best I could and started wandering off in a different direction, hoping I’d just pass out in a shrub or something. I have no idea what Debby did concerning what I said because I didn’t bother to look back. My neck was too tired and my head too sore to care. Obviously, she didn’t take it seriously enough at the time to follow me.
I meandered back the way I’d come, eventually realizing that the shoe thrown was still laying all sad and smooshed in the middle of the highway. The empty and ancient theater loomed up behind me as I stood on the walk, having just made it back into the technical “town” section of Clarion and waited for me to make my choice. It was like we were both staring at the road with the same amount of exhaustion and curiosity. Was it worth it to grab that poor shoe? I guess it would be evidence of my explanation later, not that it really made much sense itself.
I looked both ways down the road and watched the cars parked to my left and right swirl. When I was pretty sure nothing was coming, had tried and failed to make a bee-line to the boot, and dropped to the ground on one knee at least once, I grabbed the loose laces and stumbled back to safety. The curb came up to hit my butt roughly so that the blood pounding in my head could move part of its force down there.
As I was contemplating waiting on a search party instead of attempting the throngs of people in my peripheral vision again, my eyes just happened to focus on a different sort of shoe. A tiny one with red fabric and white laces, no bigger than my hand across. The little boy was probably only three feet in height. His dad holding the entire end of his arm made him seem like a pebble next to a mountain. I couldn’t stop staring at three things: the veins bulging in the father’s neck as he shouted a conversation with another man, the massive eyes of the kid focused on me, and the way his tiny hand was swallowed up whole by the dad’s. It was like his arm ended in a nub. Until that moment I didn’t even notice the roaring noise around me again. Apparently, everyone was angry about something.
I looked back down at the boy and waited while my vision twisted for it to settle again. He seemed afraid, tucking in beside the adult leg next to him, pressing in like he could disappear inside of it. Was it me? There was no one really around, speaking in general terms. All those people were too focused on the strike and arguing about said issue. I was amazed anyone could care so much about anything to gather like that in such large amounts. I also wanted to know why the blue-eyed boy was so terrified of me.
A second later his father released him, swung back with the other hand, and clocked his squabble-partner. The kid barely had time to move out of the way and disappear into the crowd.
My feet found me again after that and I made my way home, thinking the whole time about whether or not those parents were freaking out right at that moment, wondering where their son had gone. Maybe they got lucky and found him when the chaos had lapsed, but judging by the way my bag had been snatched, the kid had some bad odds against him.
Game Over
It was Saturday night, practically Sunday morning. I’d come home after my parents for once, which they found incredibly odd for about two seconds before the distraction of the television took over again. I think they were hiding the fact that they already assumed I was in my room the whole time.
But anyway, it had been one of those rare afternoons when I was actually at Heather’s house. It wasn’t exactly voluntary. She needed my help and my resolve in refusing was back to its regular weakness. So, I was in her insanely bright dining room until probably half past eleven, at which point I was amazed to see how blinding the room could still be when it was pitch black outside the glass double doors to their porch.
I would advise everyone to never ever create a space based on the idea of white and white alone if you cherish your corneas.
I left - with a little less of my vision - and was in my own bed, nodding off over my latest novel in no time at all. It was one of those deep, dreamless sleeps where you roll over with the book crumpled beneath you. I’m not sure I would have roused at all if the noises hadn’t startled me. They weren’t familiar sounds, hard to place and loud enough to unnerve. At first, I thought they might be coming from my bathroom, so I rolled from the bed, forgetting to be silent until my bare feet were slapping against the tiled floor. It stopped for a moment then. I stood as still as I could while half asleep and perked up my ears. Wind brushed against the house’s siding outside but it wasn’t loud enough to mask the repetitive sound that came again, this time below my feet.
In the dark of the cold bathroom, I quietly dropped to my knees using the sink for support. The sound was clearer there with my ear pressed to the floor. What room is that? I was fairly certain there was no furnace or machine just below me. There never happened to be this kind of ticking, scratching and thumping before. It was somewhat sad how long it took me to map out the house in my head and figure out that it would be Dad’s office.
I don’t know about most people, but it takes me probably an hour to be truly competent after I’ve woken up. The section that deals with logic has needed a new engine for years. I think it’s almost like acting as if you were still dreaming and whatever harm comes to you will be fixed when you wake up. In this instance, I decided I should be valiant because no matter what I would be fine. I had two more lives saved up in this game.
In the name of all the great spies, I snuck out of my bedroom and down the stairs with a baseball bat in hand. All the lights in the house were off. I had to remember that I didn’t live alone and that meant my parents were asleep, never mind that I just pointed out that there may or may not be a burglar or spirit in my father’s office. But to get back to that room, I was going to have to go down the hall and through the kitchen. There was only one big problem with that: the swinging door on my side had the loudest squeak in all of history. It sounded like someone was torturing a mouse and it had good reasons to. This house was more than a hundred years old; the door was as original as all of them, and no one here bothered to know how to oil the hinges. Unfortunately, in my sleepy stupor I completely forgot this and went sneaking ahead. I had no time to remember or worry about the noise because once I started pushing into the kitchen the culprit was warned. Someone taller than me and hidden by the lack of light in and outside bolted across the long room straight from the office, past the little round table where I’d sat with Ian, and jostled themselves out the open back door. Their shoulder caught the door frame slightly but they were still faster than me. Even so, I wasn’t about to let them get away. What kind of defender would I be?
They were halfway across the back yard, leaping over most of the piles of raked leaves except one that they stomped through when looking back. Whoever it was was aiming for their escape on the other side of the back-fence gate. That led to an alley between the people who lived behind us and eventually a different block, a street dividing the two and connecting to the main road. I probably wouldn’t catch them if they left this yard. There were no lights in that alley and my feet were bare and freezing in the wet grass.
I grabbed the very end of the bat and swung. Right when the weight of it would drag the whole thing forward, I let go. The crack of it hitting the burglar in the shoulder/head area bounced off the walls of fencing around us. He went to the ground and the bat went with him, one end tapping the dirt and flinging it to roll flat. I heard something totally unexpected then. It made me slide to a stop when I had been running to tackle the culprit.
A muffled voice said something that sounded like, “Shit, Reggie.”
My toes curled into the mud beneath the grass. He’d rolled onto his back, grabbing at the side of his head. He wasn’t making any effort to get up, which probably meant what I heard was exactly what I thought. Slowly, thinking that I should rearm myself, I walked over and stood above them. Their face was mostly hidden but they were definitely male…unless it was a rather bulky lady. Already I could smell that familiar scent of some kind of smoke mingling with that of herby cigarettes. It was possible someone else could smell like that, but I doubted the coincidence.
With my foot I nudged their arm away from the chin. Stormy grey eyes glared up at me. He was wearing a maroon toboggan that shoved some of his hair down on his forehead and around his ears. The rest of him was in dark clothing like a lame costume of a thief. I almost felt choked for a moment so the words that came out of me sounded extremely weird and quiet, like I was in a daze.
“…what the fuck…”
I thought he would jump up and start shouting, especially because I hit him so hard with the bat. He didn’t say a word though, only rolled up into a sitting position and watched me. I didn’t like that look. He had a very steady gaze which seemed to say, “You deserved this and I deserve to be caught for it”. His eyes squinted at me in a sad challenge, tempting me to do or say something about it. He wanted to be punished. He wanted us both to feel like shit.
It was suddenly colder outside than it felt three minutes before. I wrapped my arms around myself, the chilly air cutting through my t-shirt and shorts easily. With a sidelong look, I asked something that was meant to be sarcastic but came out more like a nervous little kid had said it.
“Did you need something?”
“You can’t do it, can you?”
“Do what?”
“What is with you,” his voice finally raised in indignation, “Reggie, I just broke into your house. I had my hands on…look! Look what I’ve taken.”
He roughly tugged out some wads of bills, a watch, and some other random objects I had and hadn’t seen in my father’s office. None of it really meant anything to me. Dad didn’t keep much in that room other than what he pulled out of his pockets when it was the end of the day. He didn’t get where he was by stupidly keeping everything valuable in an unsealed room. There wasn’t even a lock on the door. It was made mostly of glass.
Ian was practically begging for me to call the cops, beat him with that bat laying halfway in a pile of leaves, or show that I felt betrayed beyond forgiveness in any way. But how could I do that when I’d told him a long time ago that if he needed anything he could have it?
I looked him right in the eye and said again, “What do you need,” with a level voice this time.
This, apparently, made him quite angry. It would’ve been a cool moment if he kind of broke down and shed a tear or two, but no. He was an ass, through and through.
“You’re an idiot. Fine, fine. I’m taking this,” he snatched the stolen cash, “and all this. I don’t know what’s wrong with you but I’m using it to my advantage.”
“Me?! How long are you going to keep this up, this blaming everything on outside circumstances and everyone else? Why can’t you just make one decent decision and accept that there’s a chance something could go right? You do this to yourself. Just stop it for once. Stop.”
He was standing now and came closer with two furious steps. At some point, the hat had come off and now his hair was wild, adding to the madness.
“You don’t know a fucking thing. You act like everything in my life is my fault, like it’s some unmistakable fact that life can just be sunrays and roses shining out your ass if you just follow the rules. There are things I’ve done and then there are things that have been done to me. That can’t be changed. Neither can the fact that one far outweighs the other.”
“It’s your choices, Ian. Open your eyes. You did it tonight, you did it every time you were taken away, and you even did it with fucking Anna Reeve!” I had to swallow before I could finish speaking my piece, bile wanting to rise up in my throat. “The repercussions of what you choose are what weighs so heavily on your life.”
He paused, his face falling a bit as he asked, “You know about Anna?”
All I could do was glare at him without really wanting to look in his general direction, but he deserved that stare so I would stand firm. He’s not even listening to me, I thought. Why waste my time?
“You don’t know anything, Reggie. You barely even know me. Here, take all this.”
Again, the loot was on the ground. It looked puny at my feet.
“This mess, it has to be over.”
“It’s your mess. You started all of it.”
The fury was threatening to come back again. I could see it behind his tiredness.
“You’re right. This,” he gestured between us, “I did. You don’t need any of it and we don’t work. Sometimes I think one of us will end up killing the other.”
“Is that what you were hoping for tonight?”
He sighed heavily.
“Honestly, I have no clue what I’m doing other than I needed cash and knew where to get it and you make me so…incredibly angry, every time. I wanted you to see my face sneaking around your home, intruding where you thought you were safe. If you’d been afraid, if I’d seen that sort of look on your face, I think I would’ve gotten some sick sort of thrill out of it, for a moment at least. Instead, you hit me with a bat like a freaking…,” he let the sentence hang.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he roared, throwing his hands up in exasperation.
Just so I wouldn’t have to pay complete attention to what was going on, I bent down and collected what he’d repeatedly thrown away. Something was coming and I knew I wouldn’t like it. I didn’t know why it was such a big deal to me. I should have been beating him to a pulp like he wanted but there was no anger left in me. I was unbearably worried instead.
The only time we’d actually come into physical contact was when I was hitting him in the face or dragging him somewhere. So, when he grabbed my hands to stop me from distracting myself, I jerked back enough to see surprise in his expression. His grip loosened but didn’t release.
“Chapman, this is it. This has to be it, for both of us.”
Curiosity Killed the Chapman
I am naturally an individual who digs into things. I don’t know if it’s from anxiety and needing to do something with my hands and free time or just liking to know as much as I can about everything. When I went to the library in November it was to research someone. What I wanted to know - or in some ways remember - would be in the newspaper archives. It may seem as I write this that from the get go I knew quite a bit about Ian, especially with the beginnings of these pages and our written-out interactions following, but that isn’t the case. It took a while to really know the truth and this library only had so much to offer. What I knew of him when we first met and on for some time was all conjecture, if I did not ask him out right and receive an honest answer. That wasn’t something easy to attain. But to get on with things, this was the first time I really grabbed at something tangible that he was thought to be.
Honestly, I expected a lot and found a lot. Though, none of it could tell me what he thought about death, which brand of cereal he preferred, or things of the like. The papers exposed a life that had started off hard and sloped down that way a little further with each age. He didn’t have much to start with anyway, given what came from his parent’s names. It was like he was meant to struggle unguided. There were no loving aunts that cared or worried counselors showing they gave a damn by pushing him toward an honorable path. No happy, intervening, coincidental nudges at all. He was very unlucky.
Once I’d found the beginning pieces of his story - how he’d been left to die and found by chance, literally in the simplest terms - the next article was the first run in he’d had with the law because of his own actions. It was surprising the quickness with which he went bad.
One article was titled Does the Apple Fall Far from the Tree? In discreet and precise sentences - because the section hadn’t been more than a paragraph or two - it explained how Ian Wright, aged eleven, orphaned son of William Brookes and Jessica Wright deceased 1986 in a believed accidental double overdose, was restrained the Thursday of that week. Taken into police custody that afternoon, he was charged with the assault of a fellow male student which resulted in a sprained wrist, broken nose, and swollen right eye among other minor injuries for the other.
The picture I had in my head made me snicker by myself in the stacks. I caught myself when I spotted a middle-aged man with a magnificently large mustache stare at me from around a corner, but didn’t let the thought drop. Little Ian, all rage and crazy hair jumping on someone at the first reason like a rabid, wild animal. What was surprising was the defense I felt between him and whoever he’d almost pummeled to death. I was sure it was the other kid’s fault.
I cleared my throat and turned back to the screen trying to straighten my face and look serious. The account I’d been reading was the first time he’d gone to juvie. I knew just from what people mentioned around me whenever his name was brought up that there had been many more incarcerations. None of it seemed to fit the person I’d met though. He did seem generally furious at the world and he had every right to be. But still, any deep seeded emotions he kept pretty well hidden along with the other issues he might have had. At times, I could see something flash behind his eyes when something was said to him the wrong way. Those times when you could practically hear the thunder rolling in and why his expression looked so much to me what I’d called it before, storm clouds. But never in the couple times we’d been near each other did I think he would do anything in a murderous rage, at least not toward me. Maybe I was just too dull to see it.
The rest of the papers I’d pulled had many other short accounts, almost all violent. None of them would really tell me what I craved to know. I wanted the gritty details of his upbringing and all the tragic happenings that followed. The library was not well stocked in this case. Where would I go for that? It seemed like something I wouldn’t be allowed access to.
I thought it over, staring at the clunky machine before me with black letters running across a white screen. If Ian had basically been a ward of the state most of his life then everything would start with the government, and everyone knew the government had everything. Were there even orphanages anymore? Did I go to the court house or the police? He did have a lot of records with the second.
I stood out of the uncomfortable chair I’d been using, trying to remember my way to the section of town where all the important buildings were. I assumed by the time I got there I would’ve figured out which building to enter. Ten minutes later I was on the corner of North Second Avenue staring at the squared, concrete building that held the sheriff’s office of our great city and the quaint little brown one across the street, housing all the records of every person in this half of Clarion (excluding nineteen twenty-two because of the fire). I was leaning more toward the court house. It looked warmer and nice. I could just picture that it had been some rich family’s home at one time back when people still wore petticoats. I would probably have my best chance there. Another side of me that always wanted to get the bad over before the good dragged my feet to the right, passing parked cop cars and up the steps until my hand hit the cold metal of the front door handle.
Inside was a very angry looking woman in uniform. She stood instead of sat behind a desk blocked by clear, thick plastic. I wondered how long she stayed in that position, refusing a seat and looking like she wanted to spit on her computer screen. I sauntered up while looking around me for thugs in cuffs with multi-colored hair. The only other person was an acne-faced teen staring at his phone, waiting in a metal folding chair. I stopped a couple inches from the desk wall and cleared my throat. Her mouse clicked a few more times before she slowly looked up and in that tiny little motion her face morphed into sincerely pleasant.
“Can I help you?”
“Uh, yes. I think so. I needed some information on someone specific and I wasn’t sure you had it here.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t just give random files out to the public.”
And then I pulled a lie right out of my butt.
“Not even for school projects? I couldn’t read them while I’m here?”
She looked suspicious and asked, “What kind of school project? What’s your name?”
Now, this could either help or hinder, depending on how my family may have treated her. There was always that chance wherever I went before hitting Kittanning to the South and Brookville to the east.
“Chapman. I’m here to research the effects drug abuse has on a family and there are a few people I have picked out as main case studies. One of them has a lot of information that I think is stored somewhere in here,” I said, hinting with one eyebrow movement.
That expression that I was probably doing something wrong stayed glued on her face. She squinted at me and I tried to look trustworthy instead of guilty. With a quick breath through her nose she turned from the computer and rested her forearms on the files between us. A waft of coconut smell came at me through the little cut out by her hands.
“Because I don’t recall ever having had issues with your family, I’ll do you a favor, but it won’t be today. I’m too busy.”
“Alright,” I replied, trying not to pointedly glance at the now completely empty and silent room.
“You give me the name and I’ll put what I can find in a folder for you, but…you have to come back when I call you for it and there’s no leaving with it all in-hand, got it?”
“Got it.”
“I hope that paper can wait because it might be a while.”
“What paper?” I asked before I realized the stupid move I’d just made.
“Oh, sorry. Project.”
I let go of the grip in my chest and my heart started pounding a little. Lying to a cop wasn’t one of the best things you could do in life no matter what it was you were lying about and I’d never planned on doing it, funnily enough. But I’d already stuck my foot in. I could just not answer her call when it came. I knew that I definitely would not do that though.
“Right. Thanks,” I said and turned to leave.
“Hang on a sec.”
I halted, then spun around on a heel. My shoulders were accidentally doing that thing again where they wanted to attach to my ears.
“Yes?”
“The name you were researching… and I still need your phone number.”
“Oh, yeah! Duh,” I thunked myself in the forehead coming back.
She stared at me in a way that could either be boredom or pure judgment that she didn’t have the time to prove. With one red nail polished finger she slid a notepad forward and a blue pen resting across. I felt like a little kid the entire time I wrote down “Ian Wright” and my own information. There had never been a time in my life that I’d really gotten into trouble, but it didn’t matter. My heart started to flutter when I drove below the speed limit passing a parked police car on the highway. It was just the knowing that I was clumsy and forgetful and probably always doing at least one thing wrong. Luck and my name had gotten me through everything in this world so far. Luck could run out, though.
I slid the tablet back and was about to leave when I paused to watch her read it. Her brow raised like she realized who it was already.
“Oh, yes. I remember him. Don’t worry, I’ll find what you need,” she said ominously.
“Thanks?”
-
-
-
The courthouse was much less welcoming than I originally thought it would be. Old ladies are not always kind and ready to pull out a kidney if you need it. Sometimes they’re just terrible people to be around and completely unwilling to cooperate.
All I’d asked when I eventually was directed to the correct area of the building was for info on Ian’s name. They looked at me with their thick-rimmed glasses and penciled-on eyebrows like I’d said the British were coming and I needed all their shoes to fight off the attack.
“What do you mean?” the snarkiest asked.
“I mean I’m doing research and would like to see all I can on the person Ian Wright. I could dwindle down the search a bit. He’s the one that’s early twenties, in the newspaper a lot, especially because his parents were rotting in the room next to him when he was found.”
She made that fluttery motion my grandma made when I told her something that she deemed especially awful. I always thought that it was sort of hilarious, like my description was going to stab her in the chest and she was going to somehow swat it out of existence.
That sounds harsh but I’m going to leave it in because it’s true.
That same clerk seemed to gather herself and blink up at me. I wondered if her hair was a wig with its perfectly round curls, barely any grey among the dark red-brown.
“What do you need this…information for, may I ask?”
It was the way she used polite words with a snide tone that irked me. I answered anyway with the same lie I’d used before.
“School project. He’s one of my cases.”
“You know he’s back in town, right? Why don’t you just look him up and speak directly to the “subject”?”
“Well, probably because - since you know precisely who I’m speaking of - the record he has in this area. Would you go running along looking for Ian Wright, ma’am?”
Inside I was practically chortling. If I would have told her of all the interactions I’d had with him she probably wouldn’t believe me. Especially because one of those was eating brownies at my kitchen table and another was spending a whole church day among the hive of the Chapmans.
She seemed to catch that I wasn’t going to budge and if she would be rude, I could be twice as so. With an exaggerated huff, she spent the better part of an hour pulling out what I was looking for: public documents, birth and death records of him and any immediate family, practically everything that could show she was overdoing it with plenty of sass. It was a stupid move though because she was giving me more than I needed and everything I wanted.
The office had a special long table cutting the even longer room in half. I assumed with its thin, slot drawers it held maps and things too big to be looked at often. On the table top of it was where she shoved the whole collection before going back to her own desk at the other end of the room. When she sat down all the other workers first glanced up at her and then at me, most of them older women like I said before. It looked more like a quilting circle was going to begin than anything else. Apparently, I wasn’t all that interesting after that and was, thankfully, ignored to do my own thing.
Ian Wright was born to the unwed couple of Jessica Wright and William Brookes at 9:48 p.m. on November 30th, 1979. The Hospital was nowhere near where we lived that I could remember. It didn’t sound familiar in the slightest. I never found a marriage certificate anywhere in the multiple stacks. The death records were near the top though, with copies of the newspaper articles I’d only skimmed over before at the library. This time, I read clearly.
The effect it had on me was unexpected. The images that those blunt descriptions conjured up would not leave my mind. Seven years old, not knowing why he was being locked out of the way, and then realizing that they’d forgotten him. He’d probably thought that he did something wrong. Had they given him what little food the police found remnants of or did it just happen to be in there? How much had they cared before they were gone?
And then I was imagining the environment. How unlike it was from anything I’d known. As Heather had once said, the smell of everything - having to relieve himself in one room for several days while two bodies decayed in the next - would be more than almost anyone could handle. He was just a little kid. At the same age, I was learning to ride a bike. My father ran over the back half of it when it was left in the drive. The next day a brand new one was waiting for me in the garage, perfectly green, shiny, and welcoming. Every couple of years I would find a different bike to match the new inches I’d grown into. The old would be given away to some charity or wherever mom thought fit.
Before I could gather my thoughts and jump out of the illusion, I realized I was staring straight into someone’s face. A little girl with brilliantly red hair was waiting in a leather chair right outside one of the many doors in the hallway, swinging her legs back and forth. She stared right back like kids do, twitching like she might jump up and come talk to me. For a second, I thought about waving or smiling and then decided against it. She looked like a talker and I was there for a reason. Besides, I felt as if I were under a time limit with the welcome I’d received walking in there.
I tucked my chin down to look at the pages in front of me, knowing that if I waited any longer, she might gather her nerve.
The next and only other thing I found useful in regard to Ian and his family were the census records. Almost every year was left blank until 1984 and 1985. William Brookes was listed to the left of one address: 523 Hobson Drive Ford City, PA. It wasn’t much, but it was somewhere to start…and that town, I knew, was 50 minutes away.
-
-
-
-
The car was still running beside me letting off big clouds of exhaust from the tailpipe. I wondered why anyone decided that time spent in this place was worth recording. Did Ian live here, watching cars pass out of that little window on the second floor? Or play on these steps when he was banished from the house? That was just assuming they minded him watching them get sicker and sicker. Maybe it was just that one time that they’d locked him away. Maybe they knew it was their last time to feel all warm and fuzzy before the lights went out once and for all. Couldn’t they have just let him play outside in the woods? I’m sure it was safer than these streets.
I glanced around at the other ramshackle homes. Most had an air about them that said at one time they had been filled with good things. They had had the warmth sucked out of them years ago, partitions thrown up and too many people living inside. It was a forlorn sort of place. Too much for the wood and stone to take for so long.
It was surprising to see no one around. I expected the intense gazes of more than a few questionable people lounging about on their beaten-up porches and half-alive lawn furniture. Everyone seemed to be hiding out in these tired buildings or off on a better street, sensibly avoiding. I did start to notice how many sheets of plywood were meeting my eye when I really looked down one end and then the other.
I’d like to say that by now, in the time that I am typing this, I’ve grown out of my typical Reggie fashion. That would be a lie. I still find myself sauntering into abandoned buildings and chatting with the randomest of strangers. As you can probably guess, this time was no different.
There was no sign that anyone had been living in the house recently. It didn’t even have as many of its windows boarded up; only the broken ones were protected from the elements, save one on the right corner of the porch with what must have been fresh shards. Therefore, I had only a little trouble getting in, crawling through the bottom half of the busted screen door. I found all sorts of things on the floor and any flat surface within reach: partially empty soda bottles, spray cans, cigarettes burnt at different degrees, and plenty of sketchy looking articles of clothing. It only made it worse when some of them were near a dirty old mattress on the kitchen floor. I edged far away from that and other wonderful things, looking for any sign that some broken person I barely knew had been here for a time. Downstairs I found nothing of the sort. But the second floor was a little more willing.
I was about to give up. Each of the four rooms upstairs was “empty” and the faint odor of death was starting to really kill my mood. My feet started to lead me toward the staircase again and without a second thought I grabbed hold of the banister. There was obviously a reason why I hadn’t done that coming up. Something about the surface of the carved wood made me run my thumb back and forth while thinking of where else I could search before leaving. I lifted it and looked down at the large newel post, once round as a globe and now nicked and scraped so much it reminded me of a boxer at the end of a bad fight.
One of those little marks was “IW” and below it was what looked like a crude carving of a face. Whoever had done it tried to make sure it would last, cutting especially deep into the surface on the crooked mouth. Again, I ran my thumb over it. Dust cleared away just a little, but it didn’t prevent the grime from collecting in the divots. I knelt down with a loud squeak of my boots, looking for any other signs and although there were plenty of nonsensical markings and the varnish had rubbed off many years ago making it that much easier to see, nothing else was there connecting Ian more than the little initials and its apathetic face.
I stared at it for longer than I’m willing to admit, crouched right above the first step of the staircase. The longer I looked, the angrier I became. I’d never once been someone who throws their emotions around recklessly. To be honest, there was a sign above that part of my brain that said ‘OUT OF ORDER’ for eighty percent of the events in my life. But the knowing, realizing that this little scribble was here the whole time infuriated me. Something about what had happened always seemed so distant; I couldn’t have done anything if I wanted to because it occurred so far away and too long ago. What would I have done if in some miraculous way I could?
Someone had left an old rusty pipe in the second-floor tub, I remembered. Without a second thought, I stood up in search of it and came back with my prize not a minute later. It wasn’t the house’s fault. It was just a witness to all the ugly, abused and forgotten like tons of people in the neighborhood. There was something I wanted though, and the only way that felt right to get it was to tear the living shit out of that banister until the newel post cap came free.
The process involved a lot of noise, splinters, and swearing but the sucker came free, probably before I got all my frustrations out on the railing. I happened to look over a little while in and see it lying by the far wall, still attached to a large chunk of straight wood. I dropped the pipe with another loud clang and snatched it off the floor feeling victorious. I knew I hadn’t done it for any special reasons and it wasn’t like I was going to show it to Ian if I ever saw him again. This was to be my souvenir, whether the ‘IW’ actually stood for what I thought it did or not. I was going to save the last bit of whoever’s childhood out of this place before it was ruined like the rest. I had to. It screamed at me. Everyone that passed through this place had done their business right in view of some innocence without shame.
This would come home with me to the peace and quiet of my singular life.
Only, when I got there it wasn’t as singular as it had always been.
-
-
-
“What is that and where did it come from,” I heard my mother’s voice as soon as I stepped in the door.
She was standing mid-passthrough in the open kitchen door, some sort of ladle extending from her hand. I could smell spices in the air, warm and mingling with another meaty scent. My mouth started watering, reminding me of what the time was and how long I’d gone without eating. This was odd.
“It’s called a newel post cap and I’m keeping it for reasons.”
“The staircase is still attached.”
I only shrugged.
“Well, at least it isn’t something dead or dangerous.”
“That’s totally a matter of opinion,” I replied, pulling my boots off and accidentally the socks with them.
I eyed the two other pairs of shoes already on the mat, some beige heels and spotless men’s oxfords. Mom and Dad were home early. That almost never happened.
The cap made a thunk as I dropped it and my keys on the side table, sauntering down the hall to the only other lit room in the house. Dad was sitting in the seat everyone but me ever seemed to choose, papers spread out in front of him on the kitchen table. A thick, stapled set was flopping backward in his right hand. It was strange to see him there when the darkness of night was seeping in the windows and coffee wasn’t in front of him.
He turned to look as soon as I spoke up to the both of them, his glasses falling down his broad nose.
“Whaaat happened?” I asked, suspicious.
“In regards to?”
Mom had her head in the fridge, the biggest pot one could manage steaming on top of the stove and taking up most of the burners. An assortment of vegetable scraps was hiding on the cutting board next to it. There were definitely some peppers in there somewhere.
I gestured to the two of them as if they were intruders in my house and added, “And the stew for a hundred?”
“We’re hosting an intervention and that’s our weapon of choice if you don’t comply,” Dad muttered, turning back to his page.
“I’m worried you don’t know the actual dynamics of an intervention,” I stated.
“Funny,” mom added, shooting him a look, “no. I just felt like trying out a new recipe. The size was sort of an accident.”
“The accident of constantly second guessing the actual instructions and assuming more is better than less,” he chuckled.
“Keep it up and you’ll be eating it for a week.”
I skipped a beat and asked again.
“So, what’s the vat of questionable ingredients for?”
“Dinner. Experimental dinner, though…unintentionally.”
Her nose crinkled as she stirred in some other herbs. Not a good sign.
“You do realize that you’re making disgusted faces, right?”
Immediately, her features smoothed out.
“Nice try. Maybe we should order a pizza.”
“No,” she half yelled, almost flinging juices across the kitchen, “You eat too much delivery crap.”
“Since when does that matter?”
“It has always mattered.”
The tone of her voice made it sound like it was obvious that I made these decisions by choice, not necessity, not that they were really bad at parenting. I was starting to get irritated that they were here at all.
Dad was studiously ignoring us when I glanced over. This was another try, randomly, at being an everyday sort of family. The sight of all that crap spread out next to me was a neon sign flashing “F for lack of effort”. Already they’d found a way to bring work into the mix.
I snorted and said, “Shit, you had me fooled. Who else thought this whole time it was every man for himself?”
I was the only one who raised their hand. The entire kitchen was dead silent besides the bubbling brew under mom’s frown. Dad finally looked away from what was important to really see around him. He first glanced at her as if to gauge how he was supposed to react. Would it be good cop or bad cop? Chill, careless father figure or laying out the law? He turned, sort of scowling at me over the brimless lenses on his face.
“Reggie, watch your mouth.”
I always thought it was funny when either of them tried to scold me because I had the sort of name that made that impossible. There were no other syllables to add to it like the full name Regina, and when you yelled Reggie it was like trying to say the word puppies or bubbles in an angry voice. You just sounded ridiculous.
“That’s it? Really?”
For a second, I thought they might actually have tried to be more enthusiastic or at least take a chance at acting like everyone else’s mom and dad. I knew Heather would’ve been in a hell of a lot of trouble if she had my kind of mouth. I was going to push it, because that’s what you do when you can get away with it.
“Do you two even have half an idea what goes on in my life when you’re away? All the places I’ve been lately or the people I’ve started spending time with? Things happen here right under your noses all the time that you don’t even seem to realize. The fucking house was almost robbed a couple weeks ago and you both slept through the entire thing. I took care of it.”
In perfect unison, they exclaimed, “What?!”
Only dad added to the end of it, “Took care of it how?”
“With a baseball bat and some gumption,” I unintentionally yelled back.
“Wait, just hold on a second,” mom put her hands out flat as if a table top was right in front of her, “What happened and when exactly?”
I froze, realizing in my anger I’d let this little point slip, meaning I would in turn have to tell them the exact person who had done the breaking in.
They were waiting on me with bulging eyes and furrowed brows. My mouth was open but nothing was coming out. I was choking on the air around me.
“Reggie.”
“Yeah,” I breathed, suddenly quiet.
“Speak up. You were ranting just a minute ago,” dad said, exasperated by my mood swings.
“It wasn’t really that big a deal. I was just using it as fuel.”
“Fuel for what?” mom asked in a tiny voice.
She was overshadowed by his louder command that came next.
“Then tell us how little of a deal it was.”
I sighed, scrubbing roughly at my face so I could think. The tip of my nose was still cold from being outside and my palms were rough from the dry air cracking them to pieces.
If I told them the truth, would it affect anyone really? They already had a pretty low opinion of Ian and as far as they were concerned, I’d stopped seeing him since mom had come home to the smell of brownies that one day. Would they call the police on him or was that even possible to do so long after the event? I had no clue. I wasn’t a cop.
Removing my hands, I eyed them both, winging my words. Whatever came out next, I didn’t say it. Not consciously anyway.
“Some guy-”
Ian Wright.
“-picked the lock on that door over there and took whatever you’d left on your desk that night. Actually, he tried to take it but I caught him in the backyard by throwing my bat at him.”
Which he promptly cursed me for.
“It only slowed him down long enough to drop all that crap and escape over the fence. It was a pretty good throw though, cracked him right up in this general area,” I said, waving my hands above my head and shoulders.
My heart had begun to pound part way through the explanation. I’d actually never lied to them before that point. There was never any reason to. This life I lived was entirely boring before Anna Reeve got that one failed date. How sad was that? It took someone else’s lack of morality to make me do something - one thing - interesting in seventeen years. I saw it for what it was, one big Domino effect, the first nudge a threat from some raggedy, perpetually frustrated stranger. How far was it going to go?
Neither of them seemed to believe me when I peeked up. I’d been staring at the floor tiles between us while talking, like giving a speech to the point straight in front as not to know how everyone will react to your performance until it’s over with.
Mom squinted and asked, “Does this all stem from that kid who lived in juvie and who you shoved into our Sunday dinner?”
“Oh my God! I tell you there was a burglary and you act like I did something wrong. How the hell did you connect those two?”
She was right on the money, though.
“What else am I supposed to think?! You wander around here for years half alive and abruptly-”
“Maybe, focus on the fact that I just told you you have a serious security problem,” I said, cutting her off.
“So, what did you do with this intruder after you incapacitated him, Reggie?”
I slouched against the open door frame and spotted the newel and its chunk of railing sitting out of place on the table down the hall. It was highlighted in the darkness by the little crack of light I wasn’t blocking out. Already, I knew where I would put it in my room. It was like that space on the shelf above my closet was waiting for it. I never could find anything quite right for that spot or maybe I just didn’t have enough stuff. Either way, each time I received a knick-knack or bought myself some books they looked nicer, more picturesque across my desk or on the bookcase where they technically belonged. This possible piece of Ian would be perfectly kept between the cracked vase I’d inherited from my great grandmother and a few copies of my dad’s favorite tapes.
“I let him go,” I finally spoke back.
My ears pricked at the sound of their exasperated huffs and one of their hands smacking some pants legs as if to convey the total nonsense of my outburst from start to finish.
I stood up straight and started off, mumbling, “I’ll talk to you guys later…Something I forgot.”
And, of course, we never said anything about that again.
-
-
-
Upstairs I turned the lights on in my room and went straight to the closet. Everything was there as I said it would be, the square of empty space above the door frame reaching out for what was in my hands like a pair of open arms ready to consume. After some mild effort, I had realized that the topper could just unscrew easily from the whole chunk of wood.
Ridiculous, I thought with a sigh.
I reached up and placed it lightly, pausing to stare at the contented look of the finished row of things for a minute or two.
I wanted to say that obviously that newel post cap is no longer there these days. It hasn’t sat there in a very long time, but neither has the vase or the tapes that once helped in hugging it. I contemplated putting it somewhere else once, a place that was very important. But despite how meaningful it would have been, the attachment I had to this object overpowered me in doing what might’ve been right. And, even though it’s first home hadn’t been what you’d call sheltering, putting it out of doors to rot in the number one place for rotting was a statement I was also not willing to make.
Instead, I’m looking at it right now.
I thought, since this whole thing was about him, that he should be here while I typed it all out. That seems more fitting than a silly religious habit, right?
Something Borrowed and Something New
Somewhere around Christmas time of that year I decided a job was what I needed. It might seem odd to most people, seeing that around this time everyone wants a break and to be surrounded by their family, but I already had this each and every Sunday. I’d done the same thing the year before and could feel a tradition in store. Eventually, I would quit working at the grocery store on seventh street, probably around March. For that moment though - and with the chaos of the last few months that had passed - it was a haven for me. I could stop wondering about what I’d never get answers to. It would give me moments to let go. But when they’d hired me and two weeks went by in beautiful peace with the calm of everyone’s hum-drum produce shopping, I hadn’t expected what happened next in the slightest. It was like someone upstairs was trying to spice up my life in the strangest of ways. No one had ever almost died in the parking lot, not in this one anyway.
I was walking away from my car, stuffing my keys in my bag and making sure not to slip on the ice that pooled in the dips of asphalt. They liked to collect especially close to my usual spot. I shuffled on and kicked some clumps of snow as I went, but right as I looked up a horrible screeching came from behind me. As a reflex, I jumped first and covered my ears second, almost missing the wet thud that followed. I kind of wish I had. There were only a few other people in the parking lot and they all stared behind me, moving forward as if they were in a daze. Reluctantly, I turned around as well.
Some kind of SUV had spun out crooked at the end of the aisle. A person had been in their way. No one was moving inside the car and someone was sprawled out very still on the ground a few feet away. I wondered why none of the other bystanders around me were budging. They all looked too shocked to move like they’d never seen an accident before.
“What the hell,” I mumbled, rushing closer to the scene.
An older man with an impressively long beard stained dark by a busted face sat in the car. I stopped and tried to pry the passenger door open, finding it firmly locked or perhaps just jammed. His head rolled over to look through the cloudy pane. All he did was wave me away weakly, so I took that as he was fine enough for me to move on to the other person. They didn’t actually look broken when I rounded the dented hood, something I hadn’t expected. It was a boy who looked about my age with sandy blonde hair. Blood was all over the side of his head and coming out of his nose. When I knelt down his eye opened just barely to look at me. He was familiar and I didn’t know why.
“It’s okay, we’re gonna get help,” I told him, grabbing his limp hand.
For a moment, I thought he might be paralyzed, but he squeezed back just enough to show there was some movement there. I looked behind me for someone, anyone in close range that could clearly hear my voice. Two or three parked cars down a very mom-looking woman was leaning against a trunk, gawking over as if she was afraid. I found this to be ridiculous.
I met her eye and yelled over, “Go call nine-one-one. Now!”
She froze in big-eyed horror so I put a little more oomph in my tone.
“Hey, wake your ass up and get moving! Go!”
That’s when she bolted down the lane heading for the store. I turned back to the boy, still gripping his cold hand. He started to speak but it sounded like half wheeze. I leaned in closer and asked him to repeat.
“My dad,” he said.
“Yeah, I’ll find him. Try not to move. What’s your name?”
“Todd…”
Todd. Todd with the baby face. I’d met him before. It was last year at the only event our church did outside of strictly church things, the annual summer picnic. Their family was new and their last name started with an ‘S’. I couldn’t recall the rest of it. All I knew was that it was just him and his dad there. My mother took it as her job to introduce them to everyone. I, of course, said hi once and moved on, but I assumed they’d been there every Sunday since.
With the thought of distracting him, I asked, “What’s your last name?”
“St-Stevens,” he answered, sounding like he was going to cry in pain.
“You’re okay. You’re fine there, Todd. Someone’s coming to help you. Where does it hurt?”
He groaned, gasped, and fidgeted his feet a little. I gave another sigh of relief hearing the heels of his shoes scrape on the pavement.
“My…up top. Everywhere. I can’t breathe…without it hurting.”
I didn’t really know what to do beyond the need of an ambulance. I was just faking everything so he’d stay calm and not try to get up. I was sure moving would be bad if there was something wrong with his neck or back…at least that’s what I’d heard before.
“Okay, try not to talk too much. I’ll stay right here with you until they come…I didn’t want to go into work anyway,” I laughed and saw a small smile try to come to his lips, “Hey, do you remember me? We’ve met before.”
He blinked slowly, one eye already swelling and hiding the blue. Red had run down to smear into his teeth on the left side and across his lips. He pressed them together with an unsure look before answering.
“I don’t-” he bit the sentence off.
“The summer picnic last year. My mom took it upon herself to personally introduce you to every member of the congregation. We’ve probably passed each other every Sunday and not actually noticed…anyway, my name’s Reggie…Chapman.”
Because he couldn’t really shake my hand, I just gave a slight squeeze to the one I was holding again. His palm was warming up where I had hold of it but both of our fingers were still freezing. I wished I’d forgotten a pair of gloves in my pocket or left a scarf in the car to help in some way. All I had was the coat on my back. When I released him to pull it off, I saw his good eye start to go wide in fear.
“Don’t worry, I’m just giving you this,” I explained, pulling on the sleeves.
It really was way too freaking cold outside to not be wearing a coat but he only had on a jacket like he hadn’t expected to be a victim of it for very long. My coat would have to do. I laid it across his chest, noting that it was a small win for him that I wasn’t very girly. The rough, tan fabric fit him just fine.
“How old are you Todd?”
He swallowed and said, “Sixteen, but…seventeen soon…born by the new year.”
“I’ve got you beat by a little bit, just a few months.”
Right when I was beginning to wonder if that woman had gone to hide in between rows of paper towels in the store, I heard sirens. They pulled in at so fast a speed I was sure they’d run us both over. With a move as good as any race car driver, the individual driving swerved off to the side and halted without making the wheels screech once. I was pushed out of the way as soon as they realized he was still capable of speech, but because of this they also heard when he panicked that I was being left behind. In a few minutes of an argument I was riding in the back of an ambulance holding the hand of some guy I barely knew. It didn’t seem to bring him any more peace but I was willing to take the little detour, partially because I felt a responsibility toward the situation and partially because I’d always wanted to see the inside of an ambulance. Todd gripped my hand like he was trying to pop my fingers off the entire way.
The EMT woman had finished hooking him up to a bunch of mini machines and was staring at a screen and then out the windshield intermittently. I leaned in and whispered to the terrified Todd.
“It’s okay to loosen your hold there, kid. You’re going to break one of my fingers.”
“Sorry,” he said with a blush.
“You’ll be fine. They’ll fix you up just fine and I’ll find your dad for you as soon as we get to the hospital.”
This wasn’t exactly true for two reasons. When we pulled in, Todd started to freak just a little when he saw me getting out of the vehicle. I had to sneak away as the nurses and aids were swarming him inside the building. The other issue was that almost no one had a phone book. I had to call my mom - who was speaking at an octave only dogs could hear and not letting me explain quickly enough - and get the number for Father Ryan. Now, Father Ryan didn’t trust me to have Mr. Stevens’ number until I repeated that my name was Chapman. It wasn’t exactly morally justifiable but it was handy at that moment that certain people would allow most things because of who and where I was from. The calmest person was, in fact, Mr. Stevens in this whole event. I mean, he was acting the way he should have, considering his son was run over by an SUV, but his voice wasn’t rising near the level that my own mother’s had. His tone was much deeper, words level-headed and serious.
“I’m at work, but I’ll be on my way to you immediately,” he replied before cutting off the line.
As I put the phone back on the hook, I felt a weight lift. My spine got its cue to straighten out again and let me breathe. I turned away from the nurse’s station and looked around at the people rushing back and forth down the halls that branched from this point to everywhere. They’d taken Todd somewhere else and I’d already forgotten which direction. Low and behold, when I turned to the desk again the same nurse that I’d talked to when Ian was stabbed was there. From the humored look on her face she remembered me too. It hadn’t been all that long since I was there the last time.
“Do you keep assaulting people just to drag them here and see me?”
“Funny. No, actually. This time I’m here with someone hit by a car.”
“Moving up, are we?” she asked with a crooked grin and clipped some papers to a folder.
I thought about a sarcastic retort, but by the time that we’d finished this useless conversation I could’ve found Todd, finished telling him he wasn’t going to be alone soon, and on my way. The cranky nurse seemed busy. She wasn’t moving out of the little cubicle, just buzzing around inside of it and slapping folders into specific places. I assumed she could give me my information.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me where they are, could you?”
“No.”
I threw my hands up and said, “Thanks,” before getting ready to search out someone who could.
“I can’t tell you because you haven’t given me a name. I know I’m here twenty-four-seven, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got all the records in my head.”
“Oh,” I said, swinging back around.
I came up to the front of the desk. She was staring down at another folder with plenty of colored tabs on the side. Then, she looked up at me expectantly like I was the slowest person on Earth.
“Oh, yeah! The name is Todd Stevens, in a car accident at a grocery store in Strattanville.”
As she was rifling through the files and pulling one out, she mumbled something else.
“What?”
“He’s in room twelve, down that hall. Are you sure you didn’t do it this time? Legally, I’m not allowed to let you down there if you’re crazy.”
I could tell she was sort of joking so I replied with snark.
“Thanks, you’ve been a hoot.”
She gave me a closed mouth smile so fake and dead-eyed that I only snorted at its ridiculousness before I left. It was amazing how much life could be sucked out of a person and they could still find a little sass left inside.
Todd’s room wasn’t dark like I’d thought it would be and I realized that was just in movies. If you were actually trying to see what was wrong with a patient you would obviously need light. It was pretty bright in there and made me think of Heather’s kitchen where everything was white or pale.
It took quite a while of me sitting alone in the quiet for him to actually show up and when he did I could see one of the staff had cleaned most of the blood off of him. It somehow made him look better and worse at the same time. Although he was no longer ‘leaking’, I could clearly see all the injuries that weren’t internal. I went around to the side of his face that wasn’t swollen and saw that he was out cold. Whatever was wrong must not have been too bad. Otherwise, they would’ve been cutting him open in a completely different section of the hospital.
It felt wrong to leave him, though. He didn’t know I was there but being only sixteen and alone after all of it seemed cruel. So, I stayed and waited for his father to show up. When he did, I tried to find some familiarity in his features but all that was there was a sharp looking man with none of the softness his son had. They didn’t look related at all from what I could tell. I would have to really study them when Todd had healed.
Mr. Stevens was polite enough, but I could tell he wanted me to leave then. I closed the door behind me quietly, making a mental note of where the room was. I needed to come back and visit. It was just the right thing to do after staying with him up until that point. It was important that I check up on Todd Stevens. I just didn’t know how I was going to get back to my car.
-
-
-
“Well, I can see you’re not dead. That’s good.”
Todd looked up from the green Jell-O he’d been poking at half-heartedly. The expression he gave me was one of confusion. I think he hadn’t realized who I was at first, which was understandable. Being hit by a car pretty much overrides everything. He was probably in survival mode the entire time.
His face shifted after this into an uncomfortable smile. Almost hidden under the bruises, he blushed again. I wondered if he didn’t want me there to remind him of the day any more.
“Yeah, I survived,” he said, awkwardly fiddling with his spoon.
“Well, I just wanted to sneak this to you. I’ll be on my way.”
I took two big steps to the rolling table hovering over his blanket-covered knees and plopped down a small tub of brownies. That was all I knew to do when someone was sick. It’s what I would want, but I pretty much always wanted them.
He smiled at them. It was a nice smile even with the cuts on his mouth. Thinking my job was done there, I spun around on my heel and started walking out, calling a farewell back.
“Wait,” he’d started to get up and then realized he was wearing a flimsy hospital gown, “you don’t have to leave already.”
“Alright. Are you supposed to be moving around like that?”
“Well, it doesn’t really feel good because of the ribs and all but they didn’t tell me no. I’m supposed to be leaving today, actually.”
“Oh.”
Now that he wasn’t lying on the pavement all broken, I couldn’t think of much to say. Most of the time I didn’t talk to people unless I had to or they interested me for some reason.
I pulled a blob-shaped plastic chair the color of a banana up closer to the bed and sat. When he didn’t say anything and went back to his little meal, I did what I always do which is look around. It was the same room and just as bright as the last time if not more so because the curtains were pulled back behind me. He didn’t win the lottery on views though. All you could see out of it was more of the hospital from the side. There were no cards or balloons sitting anywhere to show that people wanted him to get well soon. A jacket was the only item he had in there, slung across the back of a different chair. The image of it reminded me of someone else and before I could get the funny feeling in my gut that continued showing itself, I looked away.
Todd was an odd sort of character and I say that in a good way. He had a face that made you think “too kind for your own good” which was probably why I kept feeling like he was younger than he was. He looked long and gangly, boney legs reaching almost to the footboard of the bed even while he was sitting up. Remembering back to when they’d showed up at church for the first time, all I could think was that he’d been a few inches shorter than my height. He must’ve had another growth spurt between now and then, I thought.
He glanced at me through hair the natural color of what my mom tried to get at a salon. If I was giving him advice, I would’ve told him to trim it just a tad bit shorter than it was. Then, it would look more stylish and less forgotten, hanging over the ears as it was.
“So, what did you break?”
“You mean, what did the truck that hit me break?”
I nodded and crossed my legs, laying my coat in my lap.
“Bruised ribs over here. One of them was cracked actually,” he waved a hand over his left side, “and a broken nose, but that’s fixed now.”
“That’s good. Well, not really good but better than I thought it would be. Anything else?” I asked.
“No. The doctor said I was lucky. The driver wasn’t going fast at all but the ice made him lose control.”
“Have you met him?”
“Well, yeah. He’s the one that fixed me up and everything. Why wouldn’t I?”
Confused, I squinted at him. All blurred, his face could almost pass for a young woman. He stared back at me with one of his eyebrows pulled up and big-blue eyes. I had a bet in my head that he was picked on at least when he was younger. Bullies sometimes went after what they secretly liked.
In the next moment I caught his train of thought.
“I meant the old man that ran you over, not your doctor,” I snorted, “Unless by some strange coincidence they’re one and the same.”
His wide eyes went a tad wider as he said, “Oh! No, they haven’t-he hasn’t come in. I’m trying to get my dad off his back because it was an accident. I didn’t know the guy but everyone knows how jacked up that parking lot is in winter. I don’t think he did it on purpose.”
“He could just be a really bad driver.”
This time he glanced at me from the side and quietly said, “Maybe.”
The tense silence came again after that. The kind that shows up when you’re stuck in a room with someone you barely know and you want to be friendly but don’t know how. My mind was utterly blank. I’d literally only intended to drop off brownies and run. Small talk was something I hadn’t inherited the ability to do. I went everyday saying only what needed to be said.
I sighed, glanced around me at the unhooked monitors and such, and then stood.
“Well, I should get going.”
“Okay. I’ll be out of here soon too anyway,” he replied, squishing his mouth into a line.
He definitely was a fiddler; pulling at the blanket hem or messing with his nails the whole time. I wondered why he was so anxious and felt myself getting caught in another trap. But once my brain thought it, I was stuck with this kid. My escape was already set for today. I knew I would be back. I had to know why he was Todd just like I wanted to find out more about Ian.
Shit.
One last smile was what I was going to leave him with but as I started out the open door of room twelve, he called out a question.
“Hey, wait! Could I ask what your name was again?”
His expression was a little ashamed. I could see he was having just as much trouble talking to me, probably more. I had a lot of practice putting on a pleasant face for strangers and friends alike.
“Reggie Chapman. I didn’t expect you to recall it, especially with the whole bleeding, head hitting asphalt thing,” I laughed.
“Right,” he said with yet another blush.
It was the beginning of more mess.
Would You Look at That
Someone had to let go, but I had a surprising amount of trouble making that person be me. With any situation, I was often the kid picking at the scab, unable to let things lie. I could no longer see him or expect to and this still didn’t stop me from gathering what I could about Ian. It might’ve happened differently if I hadn’t gotten the call I’d been waiting for. I would never know how long it would take for him to stop bothering me…until the events that occur later on these pages. I won’t spoil that, though.
“Hello, can I speak with Ms. Reggie Chapman, please?”
“Speaking. What can I do for you?” I replied down the line.
My voice sort of sounded cheerful but it was really sarcasm. I was bored, roaming around the house looking for things to do and ended up organizing all the medicine cabinets and the pantry after. At least it was calming, and I did find some really strange things on those shelves.
“This is Officer Franklin. You asked for information on Ian Wright, right?”
“Right, right,” I answered. Apparently, she didn’t see the humor.
“I have it here if you want to come down today between two and six, or we can schedule a different day. Whenever you’re free. The files must stay here like we agreed. Do you still need it?”
“Oh! Yeah, the project’s still rolling along. Did you say between two and five?”
“Two and six.”
I stared down at my watch and had to focus on actually reading it, then said, “Alright, I should be down soon.”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
Somewhere between the “buh” and the “eye” she hung up. Cops were not giving themselves much credit with me.
-
-
-
The station was cold, my hands and feet numb. I watched a beetle crawl in disoriented loops and circles on the linoleum floor while I waited for the officer to make a reappearance. There wasn’t much to look at in the tiny room and the woman who’d left minutes before - while certainly a spectacle to behold herself - had also looked like she wanted to bite. From her last argument at the desk I’d gathered that her girlfriend had taken off with her car. I suppose I would want to take a chunk out of someone too in that situation.
“So…here it is,” the files hit the table with a loud smack like someone was being slapped in the face.
“That’s it?”
“Yup.”
“But…didn’t…isn’t he a bit more of a heathen than this?”
She twisted her mouth like chewing on a thought. That day her hair was exactly the same as when I was bothering her weeks before. It must’ve been part of her uniform.
“You know, I’m pretty sure I remember Mr. Wright there. I was kind of new when they brought him in, but it was one of those cases that you get stuck in your head where it’s a combination; one of the first real events that also happens to be one of the worst. I’m sure I’ve seen other awful things in my time here - probably even worse than his. Regardless, it’s there in my head. He was real thin and tiny, kind of stunted I think. Supposed to be around…seven, maybe? Looked younger than that. Such an angry little thing. Wouldn’t say anything for at least the first day, just glared at you if you got close or offered him something. Usually when we get those kids, they’re shivery and their eyes are bugging out of their head. Sometimes, they’ll even cling to the first person they see and scream if they’re pulled away, but Wright was a specific kind of messed up. Real “old” looking I guess you could say. He didn’t look like a kid in the face.”
Her arms were crossed then, eyes to the manila folder. She seemed to wait a second and then shrugged off the memory before turning for the door. I wasn’t going to say or add anything to her story. It was just mulling over in my mind.
The folder was just as cold as the metal table when I reached for it, but I jumped when I realized she hadn’t actually left.
“Hey, do you know…is that kid still around?”
“You haven’t seen him since?” I asked, knowing all the stuff Ian had been accused of and gotten in trouble for.
“Nope. It gets pretty busy around here. Not much time for keeping up with people. Do you know him yourself?”
“Somewhat,” I looked down at all the scratches on the table surface, “He’s still around, at the moment. There are a lot of places he’s been between then and now, though.”
“Does that sound like him? What I said?”
I thought about it, all Ian’s obstinacy and violent expressions, the marks and calluses on his hands and face, and the way he could blow up on the turn of a dime. But even with all the dark parts coming to the forefront of my mind, I’d seen him smile. I’d seen him be curious and give people a chance. Those images flashed out among the rest like neon signs.
“No.”
“Really? I didn’t see that kid coming back from such a shitty beginning.”
“Oh, no. I mean, as far as people can go in the way of being “fucked up” Ian gets pretty close to the top. But besides that, I think he’s a good man. He knows what’s important and makes his way as best he can…like most of us.”
She was staring at me with her perfectly shaped brows pulled together. I wondered if I’d said something wrong or let slip that this was a personal mission and not what I’d led her to believe.
“I hope you’re right,” she finally replied, concern clearly painting her tone.
I recalled just then the first time I’d really been alone with him, sitting at my kitchen table. I’d done what I always did and made him angry by being a little too blunt. Immediately, I knew he would never hurt me, not in any lasting way. It was just a sense that came while looking at his closed fists in front of him, just slightly turned inward.
“I am.”
This time she did walk out, leaving me alone in their barely used but still dilapidated waiting room. I ignored the feeling that I’d actually said something wrong and started on the first couple pages she’d given me. These were the misdemeanors he’d been charged with while still middle-school age. The attack on the other kid - who turned out to actually be thirteen while Ian was eleven - was the second on the stack. A picture had been clipped onto the section of papers showing a little boy with huge, stormy eyes and a busted lip. His clothes were plain; just a t-shirt and jacket hanging off one shoulder all muted in the black-and-white photo. Ian’s hair had always been wild, apparently. It looked like it wanted to curl and gave up three quarters of the way, hanging partly across his forehead. There wasn’t much that had changed in eleven years except puberty. It was interesting to get this real peek into his history, to see his face closer to the “event”. The emotions had to be fresh here. He looked at the camera violently, sending waves from the past through the photo paper straight at me. It made me itch.
With a slight shiver, I moved on and spotted something at the bottom. The guardian’s signature read what looked like Napelen Bank. There was no way that was right. I shifted into research mode and stood for the other side of the room. Officer Franklin was still standing behind her desk chatting with a fidgety man in a bright red wind-breaker. I wondered if it was for her health, this whole standing around all the time, because there was a perfectly good chair two feet behind her looking forlorn. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. My presence seemed to disturb the man who left in a rush, scratching at his unshaved neck. I watched him tear the door open and leave before I stepped up to bat.
“Can you tell me what this says?” I asked.
With one finger, I slid the papers through the little opening protecting her from everyone else. The rest of the stack was squeezed to my chest for fear that I’d drop and scatter it all. She took the page in hand and pulled a pair of thick-framed glasses seemingly out of nowhere. It took her a moment, but her guess was better than mine.
“Oh, yeah. I think it reads Napoleon Brink. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was…or something like it. All I know is that I heard the guy talk and he’s a total asshat. Runs a foster home, but I never understood why really. I think it’s still going.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Little did she know, as I pretended to walk back to my chair and read on, I was already planning my next step. I just had to jot down a few more notes. Who knew when I might need something from all this?
-
-
-
It was easy to find the address. So much so that I was amazed even more at the access I’d been given to another person’s information. What the officer should have said when I asked for their files was “absolutely not”. Maybe I had a grudge and was out to murder. She didn’t know. Not for sure.
Anyway, I was driving past the high school and its ancient exterior, crossing the miniature green bridge that covered what was called Trivetts River and was barely a creek, and was making my way through a part of town I’d never really noticed. I’m sure I would have passed it before; I just couldn’t remember when that was. Nothing looked familiar in the slightest. The houses weren’t placed in rows like most suburban areas and instead looked more like they grew up from the earth wherever they felt like as if they were mushrooms instead of framework. There was no rhyme or reason besides getting the most yard space one could. Obviously, that didn’t often work out and sometimes you ended up with your neighbors staring right through their front window into your side windows.
Ian had lived in this area the longest. This was all before he really realized his destructive potential and when being a child was more important than being angry, but that’s just how I’d come to see it. The last record of him roaming these streets was April seventh, nineteen-ninety. That was because he was shipped off to juvie for the first time. If I really thought about it, a memory wanted to come back to me like I knew I was there when they took him away. I was just too young and it was clouded over by the disconnection between us then. At the time he was only a disaster to avoid and fear, passing by me down the hall as I probably slid into the shadows of a corner.
I pulled into the broken, concrete drive of a split level with the numbers three, four, and zero on the first porch post. Two wicker chairs faced the same point to the right of the door and a bird bath was flipped useless on the other side of the yard. There was no sign of children or life in general.
“Well…this should be good.”
A little reluctantly I crawled out of the front seat, shoving my keys into my coat pocket. This was one of the few homes that managed to be somewhat on its own. The closest one next to it was blocked by an uncut field about three car-lengths wide. It didn’t look nearly as unloved as Mr. Brink’s. Where the white paint was beginning to chip on his siding and rusty streaks rain down from corners and nails, the other looked like someone had added a fresh coat last week, bright and vibrant green. Three forty was the product of straightforward neglect.
I walked up the front steps unintentionally quiet as a mouse and knocked with two deliberate hits. I could hear the sound of them echoing inside the house. It seemed that no one lived here anymore and hadn’t for a while…until someone actually answered the door.
They didn’t say anything, only glared at me through the closed screen door over their glasses.
“Hi. I’m looking for Napoleon Brink.”
“Yeah, and?”
“So, you’re him,” I stated my guess and went on, “I’m doing research on…certain types of families. The effects it can have on someone being brought up in a specific way. One of the kids you used to foster came up and I was wondering if you could tell me more about him and his situation, especially since you had a hand at raising him.”
“Who?”
“Reggie Chapman.”
“I know you're the Chapman. I meant what kid,” he butted in, irritated and impatient.
He didn’t look like he’d been in the middle of anything when I’d interrupted, but I didn’t know his life. There was a smell of chicken broth wafting out the tiny holes of the screen though.
“How-Nevermind. I’m researching Ian Wright. Do you remember him?”
His stare went cold, shifting from regular aggravation to quite a deep look of loathing. It was a tad unnerving with such a gaunt face.
“No. I don’t remember him.”
He slammed the door closed so quickly that the screen shot out into me. He went stomping somewhere through the house beyond as I stood there, staring in surprise at the scratches cutting between the little metal squares. I could’ve knocked again. It probably wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere. He wasn’t pleased to see me before I’d even mentioned the reason I was there.
I rolled my jaw around a few times then turned on my heel and took the steps to my car. I had an idea at that moment, keys in hand, facing that colorful two story down the way. If Ian had lived here - and I knew he had - his personality was hard enough to miss that the neighbors would’ve known he was here at least once.
The field was more overgrown than it looked and wet enough that by the time I hit the other yard the whole bottom section of my pants up to my knees was soaked through with little seeds dotting the jean fabric. Goosebumps quickly spread up to my thighs. This was not the time of year to wander around with wet clothes, but I was on a mission and I wasn’t about to quit until all my channels ran out.
I definitely got a better vibe from the second house. There had to be a woman living there, I decided. No man would have that many fake geese surrounding their front porch. I felt like if I made one wrong move, they would come to life like an army protecting the borders. It was still better than walking into a place that looked as if you might never leave the basement of. There was also a doorbell that worked, which I guess was another plus.
I waited a few minutes after ringing and decided that because of the loud record music emanating through the walls that they probably didn’t hear me if anyone was in there. Just as my fist was raised, the wreath disappeared from in front of my face and a little woman replaced it. I couldn’t tell what age she was. Her hair was all grey, hanging about half-way down her back in neat waves. She didn’t have the wrinkles of anything more than a fifty-something year old though.
“Yes, can I help you?” she asked in a pleasantly warm voice, looking up at me from her four-footedness.
That was what I kept noticing; I wasn’t exactly a tall person so it was strange to look down when talking.
“Hi. I tried to talk to Mr. Brink over there about…something, but he slammed the door in my face. I wasn’t sure if you would be able to help me. I thought it was worth a shot to try. You see, there’s a project I’m doing and it’s kind of on families, I guess you could say. Perhaps to be more specific, the children with “altered” childhoods and how they end up. One of the subjects I’ve found was someone named Ian Wright…he seems to have quite a complex history. Do you know anything about him that you could tell me? Supposedly, he lived with Mr. Brink for many years. At least that’s what the records say.”
I’d kind of trailed off with my explanation, but she appeared to be more interested than my first contact. She listened with one hand on the door, the other on her hip, and nodded to everything I said like it was hard to follow. Her face scrunched as if she’d walked into a physics lecture.
“So basically you’re studying “difficult families”, for lack of a better term?”
“Yes, basically.”
“Well,” she laughed and crossed her arms, “you just knocked on the door of a pretty damn good example.”
When I gave her a funny look, she stopped me with one delicate, many-ringed hand explaining, “Oh no! Not this one, honey. I meant your last try. Not that anyone here is perfect.”
“Oh, right.”
“Why don’t you come on in and I’ll tell you what I remember. I think better when I’m sitting and it was quite a while ago that I knew that boy.”
I didn’t want to shout success just yet. Who knew what she would tell me? There could be things there I’d never want to know. Scratch that. There were definitely things about Ian I didn’t want to know, but I doubted she was about to give anything like that over.
“Just shut the door behind you and come over here to the kitchen. I’ll find you something.”
“Something,” I mumbled to myself.
I assumed that it was okay to have my shoes on since she traveled to the left, her sneakers slapping on the hard woods. Her flooring wasn’t really like the newer kind in the house I grew up in; they were obviously refinished several times and barely protected. I followed her through, staring around myself in wonder. Everywhere in the next room was covered in leaves. Plants were hanging from hooks in the ceiling, sitting on every flat surface available, and even growing out of some of the dishes. Stepping into the house felt like entering summer at the wrong time of year.
“Do you drink water or coffee? Anything you want, just pick.”
“Whatever you want is fine.”
“That would be some wine and I’m guessing that’s not legal, for you at least.”
I pursed my lips and looked to the massive cactus at my right, threatening to stab the side of my knee.
“Well, let’s just have some juice since I squeezed it out this morning.”
“That’s fine with me,” I smiled, thinking that was a little strange.
Vines were hanging over the cabinets, but that didn’t get in her way. With one hand she gently pushed them aside and behind a hook on the wall and with the other she searched through the shelves for the right glasses. The whole thing was done as casually as pulling back curtains. It was really curious to me - even though I didn’t really know her yet - that Ian would have known this person.
“So, did Ian Wright come here sometimes or…”
“Oh, he was over here quite a bit actually. Leon quite often is a bastard and their personalities were just not created to get along, which they didn’t ninety percent of the time. I do think the experience did something in him, scrambled him up more inside before the damage could heal from the incident. I’m speaking of the Wright boy, of course. I don’t really care what does or doesn’t happen to Leon. He’s one of those people that was born selfish and likes to pretend otherwise, convincing themselves it’s true instead of others.”
“Did something serious happen between them?”
“That depends on what you mean by serious,” she turned to me with both glasses full of reddish-pink liquid.
I’d thought we were drinking orange juice but apparently not.
“I guess I mean abuse…of any kind, really. He doesn’t sound like the most loving foster parent.”
She twisted her mouth to the side and was clearly thinking it over. After taking a seat next to me on an out of place, red couch against one of the house’s large windows, she had an answer.
“No…No, I don’t think so…probably not any physical kind at least. It really goes without saying, but anything Leon could have said would be everything little Ian was accustomed to and the opposite of what he truly needed right then. Everyone knows where he came from. I don’t believe people thought much about how they were taking care of him, or rather how they weren’t. All of it was hidden anyway behind the romanticized bits of what changed his life, specifically all the crap that was printed in bold letters to make sure it was all anyone saw. You can imagine what those people had to be like for that to have happened. Could you see yourself having a child and locking it in a closet, knowing this could be your last ride? Leaving it uncared for to rot away too?”
It was a very candid question to ask and sounded exactly like the words that floated through my own head. I just spoke them aloud half as often as they came to me because I knew how people would react. So, this was a surprise, a breath of fresh air. Regular people didn’t want to think about awfulness and human truth.
“Oh. So, when did Ian venture over here? Do you remember specifically why he would show up?”
“Well, to answer that you’ll have to know who he was. Ian Wright lived in that house for only around four years, but it was enough. He was in those early years of change. It was all before puberty and girls. Usually around that time all a boy does is get into mischief…and that’s what he did. I can’t remember the date of the first time he broke into my house,” she turned away to think, looking at the floorboards, “He was quite little though, especially to know how to pick a lock. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I only mention it because it was how we were introduced and when we really talked to one another first. I remember thinking about how his eyes looked in the serious face a child doesn’t usually know how to wear. It was an intensely accusing gaze even as we sat down right here and decided what to do about his midnight adventure.”
I was distracted by that more than anything that afternoon, looking at her right hand patting the overly floral cushions between us. I could’ve been sitting right where he had many times over and I found it peculiar that it was something I didn’t know when I got there. It was like realizing you’d spoken to the brother you hadn’t known was alive two days before formally meeting him, when it was too late to have any real feelings or do anything much about it at all.
And then there was the fact that he made a habit of sneaking through people’s locked doors. That, among other things, was a little unnervingly familiar.
“But, what did you do?”
“Nothing. Well, obviously I offered him a drink and maybe something to eat, but I didn’t punish him by calling Leon or the cops. I just sent him on his way after a short chat and I still have no idea if he went home or not.”
“That’s an odd thing to do, don’t you think? How old was he?”
“At least eleven I believe. It wasn’t my problem, that’s what I thought. Leon used to have foster kids running all over the place trying to avoid him. I did start to keep a closer eye on this particular one though. There was just something about Ian that grabbed you like a slowly tightening vice. I don’t think you notice though until it’s too late.”
“Oh, I think I’ve noticed.”
She looked at me puzzled, and asked, “How, dear?”
I hadn’t told her the truth. I was supposed to only know the basics of Ian Wright from collective knowledge, not actual experience. Surely, I could find a way to get out of the sentence I just blurted, but I didn’t bother. Lying and keeping up the story was starting to bore me. I was still surprised people believed the lame excuse anyway.
“Well…I haven’t been totally honest, which you’ve figured out by the expression on your face.”
She leaned back and looked at me down the ruler-straight bridge of her nose. I think she was expecting me to say something more shameful than I was going to. Or maybe she just really hated liars.
“I’m not looking for Ian because of a project. Actually, I’m not looking for him at all. You see, I want to say that I know him, but in all the times we’ve been near each other I always end up with more questions than answers. Finding out why he is the way that he is has proved difficult. Other than what’s been collected by the state or the news, this here seemed so far like it would be my best lead. You’ve spoken directly to him - known him over a period of years. I hope it was before he finished building up that massive block inside because otherwise, excuse my French, I’m shit out of luck.”
“Why do you need to know?”
She dipped her head, loose, peppery curls falling forward and eyes fixed. It looked a little like she wanted to smile. One nail tapped on the ceramic of her own mug, playing a string that was totally off in beats. For a music lover, I thought she’d at least have rhythm.
“No one’s making you do this.”
“I know…I would just like to have some answers. Aren’t you ever curious about people? Why they laugh a little at the end of each sentence or what makes them glare when they think instead of fiddle with something nearby?”
“Oh, I know that feeling all too well and because it’s gripped me, I’ll continue with what I had to say, even though you lied. I don’t think we should meet again after this…it wouldn’t be good,” her eyes looked off with something strange in them, like she could see somewhere my vision couldn’t.
“Alright,” I replied, taking another drink of the tart juice that I still wished was anything else.
She cleared her throat and went on with, “Now, Ian was an entitled son of a bitch. You might assume I’m someone who doesn’t mind people just roaming in here because a lot of people say I’m pretty flippant, but I keep that front door firmly locked at all hours and the same with the back. Once he got the hang of that little tool kit of his, he was here whenever he pleased. I’d be taking a bath and see a short figure pass by the open doorway. He’d wave, sandwich half eaten in hand, on his way to the couch. When I confronted him about it becoming an ongoing thing, he simply mentioned, “You told me to take whatever I needed,” and I had said that the first night. What else are you supposed to do with a child like that? It’s not like I really minded anyway. I just found myself thinking of how if it were anyone else, I’d be chasing them out with a kick to their backside. All I could manage was half-hearted threats to keep him out and actually shutting doors behind me if I wasn’t in the mood to be the talent at a peep-show. Obviously, I gave up every little attempt I had managed at living alone not long after.”
“I feel that I ought to tell you something.”
With a thoughtful glance as I interrupted her, she asked, “Really?”
“It’s almost the same with you and me…and him. Would you be surprised if I told you he’s broken into my home before? Or that, one of the first times we were near each other I gave him the same thing, that promise that whatever he needed he could take?”
“No. It doesn’t.”
I cocked my head at her, curiosities swimming between other thoughts. Her response was expected. I don’t know why I even asked when there was so obviously a pattern building. I wanted her to elaborate on that answer of hers though, and so I didn’t say a word. I just waited to hear what I was ninety percent sure of already.
“You wouldn’t be here, staring at me like that each time I speak, if you hadn’t had any experiences. If you were just some random person off the street there would be only mild interest in your eyes, but you’re not. You’re stuck. And there are only a few ways out.”
I had some guesses to what she was implying. She had no idea what had occurred between Ian and I, though. Everything had ended a while ago and I was the one clinging on to the memory of it.
“I’m already out, though.”
A chuckle came from the base of her throat which made me realize she was a smoker. Strange that I couldn’t smell it anywhere, not even in her breath.
“Do you realize where you are?”
“No, but you don’t know. I haven’t told you that he was the one to cut ties yet. He was always the one to find me, not the other way around. Therefore, it probably is true and over. There hasn’t been a single sign of him in weeks.”
“If you’re so sure, then tell me what happened,” and then she paused a look of distress passing over her features, “He hasn’t died has he?”
I didn’t really know if it was true but I answered anyway.
“I don’t think so but it’s not for a lack of trying. He was so focused on being a specific person and always ended up doing the wrong things…Sometimes I wonder if he’s trying to wipe himself off the map. The way I see it, there are two major parts to him: the subconsciously self-destructive one and an almost infinitesimally stronger one that is too afraid to just end it all himself.”
I retold the story as I knew it, the first night that I was able to notice how far my little point of interest had crawled, but still having hope in him. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only crazy one, that there were people out in the world like her who’d obtained the same addiction. He’d called me when it was just as easy to ring nine-one-one, which was in some ways equally as disquieting as much as it was pleasing to think of, and I told her just that along with all of the images I’d been building up in my head. The whole explanation came to an end after recounting the breaking and entering, the proof that no matter how much I was still searching for Ian, he was no longer searching for me. Her face read strongly of fear until it began morphing into plain concern, I suppose upon realizing how totally un-serious the whole ordeal ended up sounding.
For almost a solid minute she listened and stared at my face intensely with her drink and hand resting on her knee, the aged fingers still as stone. With a jerk of a movement, she stood and went to the counter. She dumped the rest of the sickly sour liquid into the sink and rinsed out the remnants. Her voice started to bounce off the white cabinets back at me, just as rough sounding as the paint above was smooth to look at.
“I don’t think he wants to die…not really. That’s why he’s hitched onto you and, at one time, people like me,” she came over and sat down again, slowly and deliberately, “He wanted everything to be your responsibility. He might not have consciously decided that but it’s the truth just the same. Why do you think he called you when he needed help? It’s not like a city that size doesn’t have a taxi service. He knew somewhere deep down in that stubborn head of his that you would force him to save himself. A cab driver wouldn’t have known until he was dead, blood all over their back seat.”
There was a good point to that statement. The longer I puzzled over it, the angrier I became. But despite the feeling of it bubbling over inside me, I didn’t want to show it to this stranger, not in the middle of her own home when I was a guest. A guest who’d lied to get in. I tried to avoid the thought of his cold figure staring blankly through the partition behind a stranger. I tried to avoid the thought that it would be my fault if that had happened. What was the stupidest feeling and thought in my mind though was that part of my anger arose from having the chance to prove myself ripped out of my hands. It was like Ian saying, “Oh. You were only important in that month. You weren’t good enough.”
“But why on Earth would he choose me? I’m not the only person around with a moral compass.”
She gave me a sideways look and chuckled, “I can’t agree or disagree with you there. Though I wasn’t around when it started, I can tell you that you did this yourself.”
“I’ve done nothing,” I retorted in exasperation.
She laid a calming hand across mine. It felt like crinkled paper, soft and warm.
“You have. Somewhere in your meeting you showed yourself. People like him only get so far gone before they run to comfort. We’re just the first stop before the last.”
I Don’t Know What to Call This One (So We’ll Stick With That)
Todd was not so much the odd character that I’d thought he would be. Where I hoped his colors could be vibrant - or at least more varied than my own - we ended up being surprisingly similar in hues. He was quite normal. Strangeness was just thrust upon him, almost in the same way I’d been dealt. Most times, I pictured magnets when it was happening to me; something plain dragging something else much too colorful toward it in order to mingle and create something easier to look at…but I’d lost my colorful bit and was searching for a new one. Todd wasn’t cutting it. We were ordinary together. It wasn’t that I kept him around that we stuck together more and more often. We both didn’t seem to have anything better to do. Often, we forced ourselves to find the other at least once every odd day. One of those times was when he had the chance to meet Heather.
I wouldn’t say Heather is exactly one of those brilliant flashes of color, but she was getting close.
I’d just arrived home. Todd had been out of the hospital for a couple months, so most days I expected him. This time I pulled up to see a little blue Honda parked by the lawn instead. Her hair in its usual cloud tied behind her looked like it was swallowing the head rest. I grabbed my bag and locked the car, standing beside the Honda until she saw me. I didn’t know what was so important in her lap just yet, but it took me waving my arms to get her to look up. Her expression went from troubled to pleasant surprise like the flip of a switch.
“Oh, hey! I didn’t even see your car pull in,” she exclaimed, crawling out of the front seat.
An opened packet of papers was in her right hand, her keys in the other. I’d known Heather for quite a time by then and, while I wasn’t always the best judge of people, I could tell when something was bothering her. She was pretending, hiding something wrong with a mask of cheerfulness just slightly off of her usual.
“Did you need something?”
“No…just waiting to get in,” she explained, pointing to the door with a fake smile.
“…Alright,” I said, giving her a suspicious look.
I could feel her tension behind me all the way up the walk and especially so as I unlocked the door. Having her anxiety pushed up so close to my spine was not going to be something I could deal with for long. The entrance was wide open. I looked over my shoulder at her, waiting for a crack in the façade. The strap of my bag started to fall and I pulled it up, still eyeing her.
“What?”
“What’s with the packet?” I asked, just getting to it.
I hated when people blew up on me when I was completely unready for it.
That was it. Her lower lip started to quiver and, in an instant, tears were pooling in her eyes. I barely had time to catch myself on the door jamb as she fell right on me. Both of us slowly went down to the stones of the porch, half in and out of the house.
“Geez, what was it?”
She stuffed her mouth in my sweatshirt as she made weird snotty sounding sobs. I know I am a terrible friend because all I could think about was that I’d have to change my top and prayed it wouldn’t seep through.
“muh muhmuh ahn her.”
“Hon, if you want me to know what you just said you’re going to have to get out of my chest.”
Her face was already a mess. Heather actually wore makeup most days and it was a lot more than me. It was in the territory of ‘don’t you shed a tear because you will be a raccoon’ kind of stuff. Streaky smudges were wiping away the foundation on her cheeks. When I thought she wasn’t paying attention I peeked down at my shoulder. There was, indeed, plenty of it painted on the green material. Great.
“I think my mom has cancer.”
“You think? Doesn’t she tell you everything?”
“I thought she did.”
She slammed the packet with its guts pulled free at me. Being honest, it kind of hurt how hard she thrust it into my sternum, but she was too busy sniffling into a fit again to notice her own strength. I pulled my left leg out from under her butt and riffled through the pages.
“This stuff seems kind of important. Shouldn’t she have it?”
“Reggie!”
“Alright! What do you want me to do about it? You really need to talk to her directly. I don’t know what you thought I was going to be able to do in this case, Heather.”
She then gave me one of the most pitifully angry side-looks I’d ever seen. Her bottom lip was even jutted out. People with light eyes always freaked me out when they cried. The red around such a bright color was almost bordering an evilness in appearance. I could never look directly at them for very long without my own watering up.
“Why can’t you just be normal for one situation?”
“Honestly, Heather, what the hell did you expect me to say? You know who I am so you know how I’d react.”
“You could at least be a little more comforting!”
“Let me ask you something. In all these years have you ever run across a turtle or a dog, something living in this house behind me that wasn’t human?”
She tucked her chin and stared at me funny, probably wondering what this had to do with the topic supposed to be at hand.
“That’s right, you haven’t. I would kill it, not by forgetting to feed it or give it sun, but because it would die from a complete lack of affection. A dog would literally either shrivel up inside this home because there is so little care processed inside me or, if it got lucky, it would escape to some actual human.”
“Reggie, you’re not a robot.”
“Are you sure? Have you ever actually seen me bleed?” I laughed half-heartedly and got to my feet.
Following me into the entryway she replied, “I’ve seen you care. You’re just weird about it, like with that dude and the other one recently.”
“Hah, right. So, tell me what you want me to do the next time your mom might have cancer and I’ll do it the best I can.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she said, wiping a few more tears.
“That’s kind of my thing.”
A taller figure appeared behind her in the doorway and for a moment my instinct was to grab the nearest thing and chuck it. My hand was already outstretched, heart pounding, when I saw the familiar, slightly uncomfortable slouch and sunny hair.
“What,” Heather started to mumble, turning around and screaming.
Todd held his hands up like he thought she might attack, his eyebrows curving up all concerned at the speed she jerked around to look at him. As soon as I recognized that expression, I let my defense drop, but Heather still had her hand at her throat like an old woman.
“You know it’s like twenty degrees outside, right?”
“Thanks, mom. Just shut the door behind you,” I told him, kicking my bag into a corner and moving to the kitchen.
I was in the fridge when the two of them pushed through the door, following me. Apparently, they’d already acquainted themselves with one another in the twelve steps it took. I hooked two fingers under the lid of some leftover soup and pulled it out to the counter. It looked chunkier than I recalled.
“I’m sorry. That’s really…That’s just shitty,” Todd was saying.
There was no way she would be able to hide the mascara smudges that had started to run down her face. Anyone would be able to see this girl was having some troubles, and knowing Todd to be at least more kind than me, he had already asked and found out about her mom.
I’d started a habit around that time, which was watching Todd as Todd spoke to other people. He would look directly at them when they were talking, his eyes roaming around their faces. I could see his mouth moving with the words they said or maybe it was with what he was coming up to respond with and just hadn’t gotten the chance to get it out. That day he didn’t focus on what I would have - meaning the makeupy smear on Heather’s face - but instead was meeting her eye and then reading her mouth. Once, his eyes shifted to her crazy, curly ponytail clearly visible even from the front, but that was the only time they weren’t paying clear attention. Then he broke my own focus when he took his jacket off and hung it on the back of the chair across from me. That was all I could stare at; the wrong coat and the right chair.
I lowered my spoon with a full bite on it. My fingers itched to find a phone book. We have to have at least one here. I didn’t think mom threw all of them out when it came. She was big on getting clutter out of the house, but weren’t those things important?
They obviously weren’t paying attention to me at that moment, seeing as they looked like they might hug soon. My stomach was starting to cramp with nausea as I slipped out the door I’d come through to begin with. If there was one place that clutter was practically impossible to get rid of it would be the living room, which meant a phone book would be in there. I was at war with myself on whether I should be trying this or not. There was definitely a tiny, squeaky voice screaming in my head saying, “Leave it alone!” I couldn’t stop though. Not that I had much self-control to begin with, but this was the first time the idea of another person was clinging to me like a vice. It was stupid and it also felt like fate when I saw the thick, yellow pages sitting at the top of a stack of magazines. It was in one of those thin baskets everyone seems to have at the ends of their couches or under their end tables. I didn’t even remember anyone buying it and bringing it home.
Like it was a bird I had to pounce on to catch, I stood still several feet away at first. With a twitch of my head I listened for anyone coming to follow me. A fresh bout of sobs echoed down the hall. Good. Todd was probably handling her for a while, cleaning up the mess I’d made. I jumped forward and snatched it from the basket, feeling the weight of it in between my fingers. The pages were quite thin which I found odd, but I guess a pound of feathers is the same as a pound of brick.
I started flipping page-by-page. When that was ridiculous and taking too long, I took seventy percent of it and pulled that open. I was at the T’s. Another large section was shoved out of the way until I saw the name ‘Willoughby’ at the top left. That’s when I remembered something. He’d only come back to town a few months ago. His name probably wasn’t even in here unless by some chance he was living where he had before. I didn’t know where that was.
I heard the swish of the kitchen door being pushed open. Frantically, I flipped pages until I was at the ‘Wr’ section of the phone book. My heart dropped when it went straight from Wragg, to Wraight, to Bill Wright, and finally Wrasman. Unless Bill was his uncle or something then I knew the plan had failed.
“Whatcha doin?”
I looked over my shoulder to see Todd with an apple in hand, two bites out of the skin. Sometimes I stopped myself and wondered what I was doing with him. He was kind and I knew “pretty” in the sense that most girls would want, but it did nothing for me. Todd was Todd, and all that meant to me was that he would be around when I needed it even if I hadn’t called. I didn’t know what Reggie meant to him.
“Looking for something,” I threw the book back and walked out, punching him in the arm as I went, “I was gonna eat that.”
“Oops,” he said, taking another bite while looking right in my eyes.
“I’m going to go, Reggie,” Heather said, quickly walking past.
“Already? You just got here.”
She had one hand on the front door like she was late and we were keeping her.
“Yeah, well…I really should talk to my mom about this. It was nice to meet you, Todd. Hope we see each other again soon.”
And then she was gone, slamming the door behind her. I swiveled in a half circle and frowned pointedly at Todd. He was taking another bite when he noticed with a double take.
“What?”
“What was that about? What did you do?” I asked, suspicious.
“Well,” he slowly spun on one heel letting the other leg swing out, “you know that thing you do where you basically yell at people when they’re sad? Yeah, I fixed that.”
Before he could get away, because he was prepared for me to swing, I lunged and punched him in the side. Both of us went rumbling into the swinging kitchen door, him laughing loudly at my act of annoyance. I ignored that and grabbed my soup from the table to lean against the counter.
“It sounds to me like you’ve got a possible crush forming here. So, actually, what you did was put yourself in front of her when she was vulnerable so she could see there were actual nice guys that care in the world,” I said with more than a little bitterness in my tone.
“Oh, yeah, Reggie. I totally planned out when your friend would be crying relentlessly and want comfort. Some people are just nice.”
“And some people have penises. There’s a difference.”
He gave me a dead-pan look but couldn’t hold it long. His mouth started curving into a smile because of the snigger he was holding in.
“Anyway, what brings you to my humble abode this fine day?”
“Well…it turns out that you can get up to that crows-nest thing on top of the commons. It’s just the trip down that’s a real issue. That’s what I was trying to tell you about the other day before you interrupted and I forgot.”
“Alright.”
Todd went to the same school my cousin Daniel did; a fancy prep school with only male students. I guess his father was strict about more than a few things in his life. Most days when he would show up on my doorstep it was because he needed to be normal for once and just talk about his day. There was no one else he could do that with, I guess. He didn’t seem to like any of his friends all that much or at least not enough to be himself around and see outside of class. But many of the stories were ridiculous for the simple fact that when you get a bunch of teen boys together with raging hormones surrounding them like a stinking cloud, there will be violence, chaos, and nonsense. Whenever he would retell these events I would always wonder if that was my cousin he was talking about. Was he a completely different person than I knew? Could he be what Ian thought my whole family was; just a name that got you anywhere no matter what you did to who? Todd’s stories weren’t usually about good people doing grand deeds. The most PG ones were complete idiocy, situations brought on by “I wonder what would happen if I bet Sampson twenty bucks to climb that tower and left him at the peak”. To be clear, they often ended in the destruction of someone else’s property. Still, I’d never heard the goings-on of that school from anyone until Todd. I was beginning to realize I had no idea who Daniel was when he wasn’t at Sunday dinner. Thankfully, these stories did seem to come from the perspective of a viewer instead of a partaker, whatever that counted for.
Either I didn’t hear a word of his story that day or I can’t recall it now because of its total lack of importance. When I look back, all I dig up is the memory of watching his animated face and remembering how much his arms gestured wildly. At one point he actually knocked a large, decorative spoon off the wall behind him only pausing his tale to pick it up with an obvious blush across his cheekbones. It would’ve been endearing to the right people.
I realize that this kid comes in at least one other point in my story later, but seeing as he’s not really even partly the reason why I’m putting these words onto paper I’d like to let you people know something. Todd did end up with Heather. They were together for a long time in today’s standards placed upon young folk. But Todd didn’t make it past his twenty-eighth birthday. It was a brain aneurysm that flipped his light off.
Honestly, if it had to be something like that ending it all, I would’ve put my money on it being brought on by his dad. I know that wasn’t the case. I was there when it happened and Todd hadn’t spoken to him since his nineteenth birthday. He didn’t seem to realize why his head was pounding so badly until the left side of his face started to melt in the mirror. Heather made it home about five minutes too late. They’d been separated for a while by then, Todd staying with me. We never really speak about him anymore. Technically, we don’t talk about much of anything, but I’ll smile and wave when we happen to pass each other coming and going.
I can’t tell you for sure. I have this idea though, that she doesn’t visit his grave. My flowers are the only ones to greet me when I bring new ones every couple of weeks. Isn’t that funny?
I’d Call It a Shift, but It’s Much the Same
I hadn’t quit my job in the months that followed. I don’t know why. I was still bagging groceries and tagging items on shelves well into March. I guess it was because no one could stop me. At times I thought I should feel bad about making money I didn’t need, but then I would always tell myself my parents' funds were not my own. For all I knew they could have all theirs illegally or die tomorrow and I’d be out on the streets. Still, a cashier job wasn’t going to get me very far.
Working at the supermarket, I didn’t see as many people I knew as one would expect of a somewhat small town. It probably had to do with the big chain store everyone was willing to drive to even though it was practically an hour away. But often Todd would come visit me. It was like he literally had no life and was willing to spend all that time in my presence. I didn’t have a lot to say in these times. I didn’t have a lot to say ever. Most of our conversations he did ninety percent of the talking with a few short questions sprinkled here or there by me. He was an easy person to be around even if he wasn’t as colorful as a beige like me needed. But there was one day that really has to do with this story more than the countless others that Todd waltzed into.
I was stacking boxes of cornbread down the aisle of dried goods. Todd was sitting on a shipment of something that probably shouldn’t be sat on. I was actually laughing, not like most times when it was more of a knee-jerk response. The memory is one of few that has gone choppy while everything else I’ve written is so clear to me.
Todd’s voice abruptly pitched low in the middle of his sentence which caught me off guard. I glanced over just in time for him to start coughing and gagging at the can of something he’d decided to open and try. He looked like a kid who’d just tried spinach for the first time and I couldn’t help but throw my head back and snort at his expression. On the wave of giggles I was riding, I noticed someone stop at the end of the row on the other side of me. It was just far enough away that I didn’t worry about composing myself. I thought they were just peeking in because of the noise or seeing if what they were shopping for was down this section. But I’d looked, out of habit.
He appeared to be angry.
Todd was still going on. It was all mumbles and choking sounds to me. I wanted to keep him focused on his end of the store and the food so I nodded my head at the break he took for breath, staring the other direction.
Storm clouds were coming in.
Ian hadn’t changed much. In the grand scheme of things, we hadn’t avoided each other for very long; it only felt like ages. He still hadn’t shaved off the perpetual stubble on the lower half of his face. I secretly thought he kept it there so people would think he was a bum and leave him alone. The same thing was the case with the wild hair that needed a pair of sheers taken to the unruly waves. The jacket was gone. It was strange to see him wearing all black where the plaid had always hung. It made him look sallow. The stare was long enough that Todd realized I wasn’t paying attention.
“Who is that?”
I was reminded of my cousin Hannah, staring across a large lawn to a point between trees.
“That’s Ian Wright.”
Ian must have heard me because his lip slightly curled before he found his feet again and moved on. I knew he hadn’t just been glaring at me, but there was no way he could’ve known Todd. It was lovely seeing how much he didn’t want to be around again. I needed that reminder.
“I…have no idea who that is,” Todd said cheering up again, “He looks hostile…and a little bit crazed.”
It was odd having one guy say that about the other or even know of the other. What was Ian’s first impression of the kid who’d just described him? Not that it didn’t seem to be clearly written on his face just a second before. Todd blinked at me and raised one light eyebrow, a question in his eyes. Only then did I realize I’d been gazing at him much too long.
“Sorry. I was thinking.”
He was quiet, which was unusual for Todd. I’d finished tagging a whole row before he spoke up. A can of low sodium corn was in his hands and he was fiddling with the edge of the label, looking down at it to where I couldn’t analyze the look on his face.
“Do you know him well?”
I paused with a box in hand and studied his hair. I always expected to see darker roots in naturally blond people, as if they were all lying.
“Nobody knows Ian well.”
“But you were friends.”
“I wouldn’t say friends…”
He threw up his free hand and looked at me like I was circling around the point.
“Well, were you on a badminton team or something? I’m assuming that you are acquainted by that murderous glare he shot our way and your ensuing silence.”
“I helped him out a few times. So yes, I know something about him. He’s not crazy.”
I don’t know why I had to make that last point because I doubted anyone would believe it. Ian was a mass of contradictions and while he thought he wanted people to take him seriously, his actions didn’t do anything toward making that come to fruition.
“He doesn’t look fond of you now.”
“I don’t think he looked fond of me then. We made an agreement. I think he just wasn’t thinking of seeing me today…or any day for that matter. The two of us don’t run in the same circles.”
“How did you end up helping him then?”
“The same way I got stuck with you; accidents happen.”
He made a scrunched-up face like this offended him but didn’t meet my eye. I paused wondering why he cared so much, especially if Ian gave him the vibe he said he had. There was nothing to worry about on his end and even if I were to reconnect with Ian, Todd wouldn’t have to go anywhere. Heather hadn’t left so why should he? I really was starting to wonder why all these people kept coming around in the first place.
I finished what I was doing and knew what he was sitting on would have to be next. But now he’d gone from concerned to distant.
“Hey,” I nudged his shoulder with a finger, “what’s up with you?”
He looked at me sidelong, very serious for a moment. Something was being calculated behind his pale eyes. I’d gotten that look before but not from him. He exhaled through his nose and wiped a hand over his face. With two quick moves he sat the can down and jumped off the stack. I’d have to pitch the open one next to it when no one else was around, I reminded myself.
“Nothing. Hey, could I get Heather’s number again? I lost it,” he explained, trying too hard to sound nonchalant.
I watched him for a little more than a moment, trying to find the underlying meaning and coming up short. The gloom had faded away to nothing and if he could get over it so quickly it obviously wasn’t important enough to worry about.
“Yeah, here. I’ll even let you use the phone in the back,” I said, walking that way.
“Shouldn’t there be some rule against that? It sounds like something that would be frowned upon,” he muttered behind me.
“Well, I often do those kinds of things.”
There were no co-workers or managers in the break room. I was glad for that because Stewart was managing that night. He was the type of man to have a complete breakdown over one orange on the ground out of its pile. Letting a customer use the phone? I could see the little vein in his forehead finally bursting.
-
-
-
It’s not easy to crawl up to my old bedroom window from the ground. There’s no roof below it or trellis to climb like a ladder. You have to really be trying to reach that second story opening to make it up there. I never got the chance to ask how he did it. There were distractions.
This was the second time my ears were pricked up by the sound of foreign movement in the middle of the night. Unlike the last time, I refused to crawl out of bed. The results of the first break in were the kind I didn’t wish to repeat and nothing even ended up being stolen. This time they could have whatever. They could take all the ugly paintings, the useless china, and anything else left lying around that might be sold for a good price. I didn’t value any of it and I doubted my parents really did. There would definitely be a blow up in the morning but they were the ones who couldn’t be woken if a tornado was hitting the house.
When I realized the thumping noise of someone crawling around was up at my own window, it was another story altogether.
I never locked my window, stupid as it was. My perspective of the world is a little different now and I make sure everything’s shut properly, but back then it was something I didn’t think of. This for sure made it easier to slide the damn thing open.
I sat up straight, frozen because I wasn’t actually asleep. The blurry thoughts of being drowsy weren’t there to make me brave. I had no time to make a plan and grab a weapon. The threat was real and it was already two feet from my head.
Cold air seeped into the room, tumbling in with the stranger. I could smell the remnants of something burning on the wind, rain about to come, and the scent of just plain chill. This person was pretty graceful, as crawling in a window after somehow climbing up a wall goes. They stood there looking larger than I thought to defend myself against in the dark.
And then I smelled cloves.
“Ian?”
They turned their face toward the dim light. The street lamp I usually wished would go out was welcome at that point. His expression was shown all in angles. I immediately knew he wasn’t happy.
“Ian, what the hell are you doing?”
It was hard to sound outraged because I really wasn’t. If anyone could come in my window that night uninvited and not be beaten down with a baseball bat it was him, ironically enough.
He seemed to be struggling with something. He wasn’t supposed to be there. We agreed to stay away. It looked like any minute he might leap through the opening because of this. New lines were slowly appearing in his face, ones of frustration and indecision. His eyes stayed glued to the pajama bottoms I kicked to the floor a while before out of discomfort.
“Were you sleeping?”
“What does that matter? You just broke into my house…again.”
“I’m not here to take anything this time.”
“Technically, you didn't last time either.”
“Reggie,” his voice sounded reprimanding.
Now that he was looking at me, turned away from the illumination, all I could see was that he did have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but not what they were doing. It probably wasn’t smiling.
“You’ve found a new project, haven’t you?”
I don’t think I’d ever called him that out loud, which made it slightly creepy that he used the same word for it. I should have known that he couldn’t deal with real proof of any kind of separation. Ian wasn’t someone who could just let things go. Maybe in the beginning it seemed like that was the case, but he would always be the first to come circling back around. Todd just put the signal on for him to turn.
“Oh, yes. I do pottery on the weekends. How did you know?” I asked with mock amazement, falling down to rest on one elbow.
I could see his expression again. He was grinding his teeth behind closed lips but his lids were heavy as if he was completely done with the situation. His hands were balling into fists that never settled and I suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing a coat. It had to be less than thirty degrees outside.
“Hey,” I said a little more calmly.
“What.”
“Close the window. It’s freezing.”
“It’s fine where it is. I’m leaving in a minute anyway.”
I fell back on my pillow, staring at the ceiling and adding, “No you’re not.”
“Funny as it is, I’m not happy to see you. I thought I would be and I knew you’d let me back in if I tried. You’re worse than I am at these things, letting me come and go as I please.”
I was pretty sure I’d started him on a rant then.
“Why do you need people the way you do? Is it because your whole family is disinterested? Is he fucked up, that guy in the store? Is he just as fucked up as me? I know how you like ‘em that way, all pissed and broken. It’s probably that hollow pit inside of you. That same emptiness that makes you say the shitty things that you do, all wrapped up in boredom and apathy.”
“Ian,” I broke him off and rolled my head to look over.
“What,” he said, a little louder than an inside voice.
“Who is in whose room?”
“I hate you.”
The way he said it was so off that it sounded like a pleading question. It wasn’t his voice at all. I thought I would feel it more, but because the meaning behind it didn't fit the words I was more worried for him. I sat upright again, realizing the empty and the apathy drifting in like a fog as I went on. What a strange defense mechanism.
“How much courage did it take for you to choke that out?”
He was utterly silent, standing where he’d landed on entry. These little words shifted in and out of my mind.
Maybe I could even get him to hit me.
“I couldn’t hate you, Ian. Do you know that? Because to hate someone you have to actually care in the first place. There needs to be a reason to care. Do you see one?”
“You’re proving the first point I ever made about you.”
“Yeah, well…who gives a fuck?”
“Reggie, tell me one thing.”
He glanced out the open window briefly and as if the wind expected it, it gusted in another blast of cold. I was about to jump up and slam it closed myself.
“What’s the point of offering someone anything they want if you’re just going to take it away a split second before they grab it? Why do that and then tell people you’re not what they think of you?”
I said the first thing that came to mind.
“Because that’s what you do with an orphan that comes to your house begging for scraps.”
The contact that the back of his hand made with the side of my face made the room go white. The pain wasn’t instant, funnily enough. Somehow, once the stinging actually hit, it also felt a little like I’d been punched where the bone was closest to the skin. Lights swung across the room. I thought I was passing out until an engine revved on the other side of the wall, passing down the street. When the beam careened across his face, I saw an expression of complete horror. He looked like he would be sick.
In the next second his hands – including the one that really hurt when it was slung against one’s head – were cupping my face. I think it was meant to be gentle because he wasn’t squeezing me like he was looking for my throat to twist, but it still was sore on one side.
“Oh shit, Reggie,” he whispered harshly like I’d been the one swinging, “Oh my God.”
He was trying to see my face for a mark, feeling the wall for a light switch with one hand and frantically glancing between the two without letting either go. With a calm tug I pulled the string on the lamp beside the bed, taller than the headboard. I always used it to read before.
His focus was back again. It was a new kind of darkness in his eyes that puzzled me. It wasn’t like the storm clouds. It reminded me of an empty room; still filled with the warmth of the person that just walked out. With this there was a look of disgust contorting his lips. I had that look when bile was right at the top of my throat. The stinging was still there but a new pain was rising up to match it. The kind that felt like an instant bruise and a stiffening ache when I moved any part of it.
“Reggie, I can’t…I mean, I can’t…”
I stared back at him from where he knelt and that appeared to make him feel worse, but really, I was just studying Ian in all that he was. He might’ve knocked me silly or I could have just never been that close to him in proximity before. There was a scar running down the corner of his right eyebrow, around the curve of his skull and the outside of the eye socket, fading out the further south it went. No one would probably ever notice it the rest of his life.
“Are you going to cry?”
He shook his head in one short movement like it would rattle and looked at me wide-eyed.
“What kind of question is that?!”
“You looked like you were going to. It’s just a simple question. That or puke.”
He groaned and dropped his forehead on the mattress under my chin. It was a very weird thing to see him do. That night was full of things like that. A mumble was crushed into the sheet, forced to stay mostly in his mouth.
“I can’t hear you,” I replied dully.
“I said,” he leaned up to look at me, “I hate you.”
“I already know that. It’s not new.”
“How can you be so calm all the time? It’s like you have half the capacity for emotions that everyone else has.”
“I think if I were to compare with you, it would be a quarter. You don’t have a good grip on your reactions…I guess the best explanation is that I don’t really have to try. Maybe you’re right.”
“I’m confused.”
I gave a short laugh in which he acted like he might thump me but stopped his hand. A quick glance was given to my right cheek and then he dropped it and looked at the wrinkles of fabric between us.
“Most of the time…everything isn’t real. I have this little Post-It-Note tagged on the inside of my brain that reminds me I’m not actually here and all of this going on around me is something someone wrote up on a page. There’s no point in fighting it or overreacting because life will flow the way it wants to.”
“That’s easy to say when you have the life that you do. You’ve been given no worries; you didn’t choose not to have them.”
“Maybe…but you create more than you deserve.”
His expression was very honest but not a word escaped from his mouth. He looked like he didn’t know what to do. Not in the regular, whatever kind of attitude he always had slung over his shoulders. This was desperation put on display under one of those fancy gallery lights.
Those grey eyes looked off into complete blackness behind my head board. I knew he wanted to say help me, and I also knew he never would.
I would’ve done everything I could in a heartbeat.
If he had just asked.
I was thinking of other things when his head hit the mattress again, arms crossed around him and one cheek pressed to it. His eyes were closed but he would’ve been given a view of my feet otherwise. I could feel the cold air from outside still coming off the skin of his arms. How far had he walked to get here, I wondered.
His hair was quite dark in the light of one lamp, waves curling around each other in a mess like a pit of snakes. I didn’t know what he would do, but I pressed the injured side of my face against it anyway, letting the softness ease the pain a little. He didn’t seem to mind. The smoke scent he always gave off was present here but not nearly as strong. A smell of amber was thick in the strands of his hair, overpowering what cigarettes had left behind. I always thought it was weird how I’d never once seen him light one up and yet the scent was there all the same, one of those brands that was probably less filled with chemicals because it didn’t really assault one’s nose. Sort of spicy and somewhat like cinnamon.
I felt him start to budge underneath me. Before I could completely jump out of his space a hand slid up the other side of my neck meeting my own hair. He lifted his head and turned so that our cheeks were pressed together. It was funny how still I became in that moment. I stared ahead at the cluttered desk by my bedroom door, waiting to see what he would do next. I’m sure I looked like a dumbfounded statue, and even more so when he turned again and pressed lips to the mark he’d inflicted.
In a moment more, he was back to his old position, acting like he was asleep and leaning against my bed. My eyes wandered around the room in a quick survey. It was one of those times where you wait to see if something is real and stare at the cameras in amazement, before shrugging your shoulders because nobody jumped out to say, “Hah! The jokes on you!”
More hesitant than the last time, I put my face back against his warmly scented hair. He exhaled like he was settled. Before I knew it, I was dozing off. Each time I blinked to blurry, half-awareness we were closer together; an arm curled further in and my knees tucked to be more comfortable nearer to him. Eventually I stopped jerking my eyes open. I’d found the right position apparently.
Ian was gone by the light of the next day.
When Did It Snow?
I got out of bed with an intensely grumpy attitude, which my parents – god bless them – actually noticed that morning. It was Sunday. I had forgotten it was the one day they landed back on Earth. This was not the most convenient time for them to be remembering to talk to me.
I punched the swinging door open, shuffling into the kitchen on striped socks and four hours of sleep. Once I hit the counter, I grabbed blindly for the cabinet with the coffee grounds and started the process of making it before I realized the pot was half-full of dark liquid already. I paused and stared at it like it was the most puzzling thing I’d ever seen. It had to have been at least a solid minute of direct eye contact with a coffee maker.
So, then I had that on my résumé.
With something that made me think “old man swivel”, I turned my whole self around to look at the occupied kitchen table. Mom and Dad were sitting across from each other, already in their Sunday best. They were watching me think very hard about the appliances on that counter.
“You. Look like crap,” Mom informed me.
With a pained smirk, Dad added, “That was harsh…but not totally untrue.”
I sighed like someone had asked me to move a mountain and grabbed a mug instead. The coffee tin remained on the counter as I poured. It wasn’t steaming but it was black and that was all I needed. With one chug I downed the entire cup. The first thing I thought was that it wasn’t working fast enough. Another mugful was poured and down my throat it went in the same way. I went to shuffle out of the kitchen, hopeful that it would kick in while I showered, but my eye was caught before I could punch the kitchen door back the other way.
Both my parents were staring with shock, a little bit of disgust, and a dash of fear.
“Reggie, you’re going to vomit.”
“Oh…I highly doubt that,” I replied, finally making my exit.
I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten into the shower but by the time I noticed every part of me had been washed without me consciously doing so, I was practically jumping out of my skin. The hot water ran out just a moment later. I watched the goosebumps rise across the skin of my arm, the loofah left to rinse under the shower head in my right hand.
You can get out now. You’re done.
I know.
But it took me a second to budge. I was trying to recall if I’d ever even taken a cold shower before. I let the sponge roll off my fingertips and fall to the shower floor with a wet bounce. Then, with a jerk, I flipped the knob all the way to the right and dunked my head under the icy rain.
Hmm, I shivered uncontrollably. This is horrible.
It truly was and I wasn’t about to let myself move. I thought of anything besides the water hitting me like pellets. Mainly, hands came to mind. Hands with more scars than I could ever count. Scars that collected and overlapped until they were just this ruined road-map of fleshy lines and then did so again, somehow becoming something that wasn’t even ugly after all. How could that happen? Everything seemed to be a circle that started and ended in the same place. I suppose there was hope in knowing you could become something so unsightly that eventually you’d come back around to beautiful.
You should probably turn the water off before you lose any of the sense you had.
And I did. Turn the water off I mean, not lose my mind.
At that point, staring at my red-eyed, dark ringed face in the mirror, hair slack and dripping, I vowed never to pull that little maneuver ever again. Black coffee didn’t like me when it was forced down.
I jerked dramatically the next second when two knocks sounded from the door. My eyes squinted suspiciously at themselves thinking we’d sensed the taps before they even came.
“Yes?”
“Reggie, you need to hurry up. You’re going to be late,” Mom chided.
“Um…alright…”
For some reason, I had this feeling that she was up to something. There was a secret she was keeping and I needed to find out what that was.
“We’re leaving. We have to pick up Grandma and Grandpa where their car is in the shop.”
“I thought they had five?”
“Why would they need five cars?”
“I don’t know…you tell me.”
She was silent for just long enough that I knew she hadn’t left and was about to probably yell at me. I was right.
“Reggie, open the door.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
I looked around myself like a weapon might be needed or maybe I was just searching for an excuse.
“I’m not decent.”
“Well then get decent and open this door.”
She was using the Chapman voice, but just barely. It was only from hearing it all her married life and not that she’d been born with the skill.
I wrapped the robe tighter around myself and with a jittery hand unlocked the door. She was standing on the other side with her hands on her hips. A cloud of rosy perfume tried to suffocate me as soon as the barrier was gone to stop it. Her expression wasn’t angry, probably because she could now see how the shower had made my appearance worse. The look was, however, just as suspicious as I felt.
That’s when I realized that I was acting crazy.
“Have you been taking something? Sneaking out at night?”
“Wow. Getting right to the point today, are we?”
She just gave me a very level glare and waited.
“Since when does it matter?”
“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean and I don’t think you really want me to know. Does this have to do with what I think it does?”
“It’s too early for this type of confusing conversation,” I groaned but went on, “First of all…what? And second, if you say drugs one more time, I swear I’ll break something.”
“Do you need to tell me something else?”
“Do you mean do I need to or do I want to? Because there are probably a few things that it wouldn’t hurt to tell you and I haven’t just yet but it’s not necessarily that I want to. Honestly, when I think about specific happenings the phrase “ignorance is bliss” comes to mind so maybe it would just be better to keep some things in the dark. It’s not like every parent knows everything about their child anyway. I mean, you don’t know everything about Grant, do you?”
My mother blinked at me with an expression I’d only ever seen in the mirror. No one could sassily point a stare at stupidity like I could. Although, she was clearly confused under that mask. As was I.
“Don’t down coffee like that anymore.”
I sighed, “Can I stop being naked now?”
“Why do you have to say things like that? Just hurry up and we’ll talk later.”
She started to cross the hall for the stairs again but paused with her hand on the railing. I kept staring at her nails wondering why she wasn’t the type of woman to get them manicured because the rest of her obviously looked like one.
“And please don’t forget to pick up Anna, even if you do end up late because of it.”
“Oh! I won’t be picking that up any time soon,” I stated quite loudly.
I could already feel my face heating up in anger. I was trying very hard to forget about that girl and what she’d done, but no one was really letting me.
“Reggie Chapman.”
“She’ll fill my car up with the scent of bad decisions and cotton candy soap and spitty spearmint gum and I’m not having it. Not another day.”
“Reggie, what are you talking about? You were fine with Anna two days ago.”
“Mom. I don’t think we spoke to each other two days ago, you and I. It has been weeks that I’ve realized how much I really don’t want to deal with the colossal asshole that is Anna Reeve any longer. You’ve been shoving and shoving us together for ages and now, she’s overstepped the line that runs through “this girl really sucks but she fills the silence” to “wow, she has no morals and it’s bleeding over into the things I actually care about”. So, no. No, no…no.”
And then I shut the bathroom door.
I thought the topic was over with and I assumed I would get some peace on the subject, never having to speak or see the character in question unless, unfortunately, I ran across her in the Nelson’s Goods and Produce. I was pretty sure she lived off gossip like a filter-feeder anyway and had no need for things like bread and vegetables.
But I walked into the church, still unsettled with people milling about, to see a head of blonde curls seated just behind my brother’s pew. Grace wasn’t there of course. I wasn’t sure she even believed in God and I never understood why everyone made her come here before. So, Anna was sitting right behind Grant, who was holding a squirmy Riley, and conversing with her over the back of his pew.
I really, really wanted to keep the promise I gave her in my car…but my mother was there and so was the life-sized statue of Jesus. Neither of them looked any happier than I did when they saw I’d arrived.
“Reggie,” she grabbed my arm, “Reggie, pay attention.”
“What?!”
“I want you to sit up front today, next to your uncle Dave and aunt Kathy.”
“Why? There won’t be any room.”
I tried to pull away from her steel-like grip, my eyes glued to the back of Anna’s head.
“Daniel is out of town so you can even sit next to Hannah if you like. She always wants you next to her anyway. Reggie,” she barked, grabbing my chin so I’d look at her.
There was a split second when she glanced behind me, over my right shoulder and looked concerned. That was definitely weird. If I was going to beat Anna’s ass it wouldn’t be inside a church. I’d drag her out. Certainly, my mother knew I had a little more class than that.
“Reggie, please. Go sit up front.”
I sort of glared at her, feeling my whole forehead crinkle up like a paper bag. She didn’t look as angry. She only stared at me as if I was going to blow up and make a scene.
“What is it? I can sit in our usual spot and keep calm. It’s not a big deal,” I told her, relaxing my shoulders and partly my face.
“I’m not so sure you can.”
Her eyes flicked to Anna.
Before she could grab my face again, I jerked my head that way. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Grant was still talking. He didn’t look cheerful or depressed, just chatty. Riley was tugging at his dad’s shirt collar and trying to look at anything that wasn’t where he could immediately see it. Anna’s face was hidden from my view by the old man next to her and between us. It was probably Mr. Rusaf. Everybody was where they always were, seated practically as if we had decided on tagging the pews in assigned order.
Grant actually laughed then, but he was looking to Anna’s right side. Her hair was like a cloud that day blocking a whole other person. I wondered how she slept with all that mass behind her, propping up her head at night.
Finally, she tilted forward trying to get Riley’s attention. This was completely unlike her. She’d never shown any interest in children, unless there was someone she was trying to impress. That usually lasted five minutes at the most. I’d actually timed it once, one of the many times I had to pretend we were actual friends.
Grant started nodding and Riley turned around, hiding in his own chubby hand and Anna poked his little nose and Ian said something else to Grant.
“Reggie, the service is starting. We need to be seated,” I heard my mother tell me.
I stared at the grin that spread across Ian’s face and continued to watch when it faded out again as he turned, feeling eyes on the side of his head and finding mine.
There’s a rhythm to the moments in life that you feel like you’re on camera. When you feel like you’re part of a film and you really need to make this section good and believable. To do that, you have to go slow. It has to be rich like the coffee I drank that morning. Obviously, you don’t know what it tasted like, but you get my point. I couldn’t pull much of it off that Sunday. My whole life has been made up of those moments. I didn’t believe any of it and therefore acted it all out. I didn’t realize how disquieting it was to actually feel something or how much worse my reactions could look.
My lip was twitching, my brow was furrowing, and I wasn’t sure if I would frustration-cry or not. I decided to just leave when I saw how decently Ian had done himself up for this service. He didn’t even really have the dark circles that were ever-present beneath his eyes.
My mother hissed my name behind me as I walked right back out the front doors.
I didn’t know where I was going other than to my car. I needed some walls around me, where if there were doors, I could lock them and be on my own. It was also a quick exit.
The bells began to ring the moment I sat down, muffled but still intelligible as Westminster Chimes. All I wanted was to find a little control and calm down. One moment this was ridiculous and the next I had every right to be furious. But, why? I’d already said I didn’t care, so I might as well act like it. Otherwise, people would stop believing the lies I told when I needed it.
Movement caught my eye and I pulled my head up to look outside. The locks clicked down before I realized it was just a random church-goer late to enter.
No one was coming out for me. Why would they? It wasn’t the sort of thing for them to do, they never had in the past. I couldn’t tell how that little feeling in my gut - the reaction to a misled idea that I was watched over - had the nerve to pop up. I wanted to say, ‘You’re making things worse,’ and punch myself in the middle…But that’s anatomically impossible.
What was I still doing here, I thought? Freedom. All these years, not one person beyond the red doors really cared if I missed a day of “worship” or not.
This is what you’ve always wanted. Or were you lying about that too?
Ian’s eyes, all clear and bright as the day. Forecast must’ve said no rain.
The engine started up weakly with barely any rumble. It made me lose that much more of the rage energy that was fueling my exit. No matter what, I was still going to have to come back at some point and see all these people again.
I pulled out of the lot and instantly turned right. This led me to town and the street where I’d been mugged. I curved the car left, the opposite direction from my own home and closer to aunt Deb’s house, but I didn’t make the slight turn at the “v” in the road that would take me there. I was going out of town and it wasn’t the direction I usually took. There was nothing this way but countryside, run-down barns, and one massive pond until you hit the interstate. From there I could go anywhere. That was the beauty of interstates; they were all connected to each other, like the arteries of the entire U.S.
I didn’t make it all that way though. I just ended up stopping on the side of the road next to a broken fence and a field full of dry grass. At least no one would find me. All of these people were starting to mix life up more than I cared for.
What were you supposed to do once you stormed off? Something productive? Not coming back would probably solve a lot of that issue in a way, but it was clear I wasn’t that sort of gal. I was going to wait, to do the socially accepted form of running away by moving out of the house and to at least a different county by the end of eighteen. Might as well put my parent’s money to good use, right? It wasn’t like they were using it for anything good really.
As much as I’d like to pretend in these moments that I was done freaking out about the situation behind me and moved on to the ever-present mess between my family and I, the second was a quickly fading distraction. My mother only gave me an excuse not to immediately ponder what I didn’t want to ponder. More specifically, what was rising in my esophagus. Once I’d gone through the ring around in my head, I realized rings only go so far.
They’re circles, obviously.
They keep repeating. Shower-me had already pointed that fact out.
I was back to square one of my throat burning and my head throbbing.
What was the hold this had on me?
The cold came in the time those mixed up thoughts manifested themselves. I’d only put on a light sweater and dress pants weren’t exactly made for warmth. The hood of the car lost its heat fast under my butt with the late season air and the early morning. How long could my temper last?
I stared down at the watch on my wrist, all dainty and completely not my style, but I wore it to every occasion just the same. It was only two minutes past nine. The Mass would still be going on, barely started at all. I knew that I should go back at the same time that I definitely should not. I’m sure everyone noticed the weirdness of the situation between my mother and me; each person in that congregation had the uncanny ability to not miss anything that was a teensy bit exciting, and I had two massive signs strapped to my front and back that screamed, “I’m Broken,” and, “Pay Attention,”.
I came up with three options and none of them sounded like something I’d prefer to do.
One: Go back to church but quietly hide in the row closest to the doors, then when the service ended either flee or find my parents.
That was a bad option because I would look the coward and also, I had no idea where Sunday dinner was that day. It was practically impossible to catch anyone on a phone to even ask, anyway.
Two: Make a silently-grand re-entrance into the church and walk right up to where I was supposed to be sitting.
Nobody would be fond of that and even if I was as quiet as the grave, I would be a distraction. No pie for me.
And finally, three: Just go home.
Three meant that I really was a coward and cowards definitely didn’t get pie even if someone happened to bring leftovers home.
-
-
-
By nine fifty-seven I was in the parking lot, turning the key back in the ignition and hearing the engine cut off. Honestly, I hadn’t decided between one and two until I’d snuck in through the back entrance, walked past the storage and bathrooms, and poked my head in the side door of the nave. My eyes went directly to our section and spotted first the blindingly bald head of my grandfather and then the pale, frizzy spirals of the one Reeve I could not stand. No one was sitting beside her at the very end of the pew.
I stepped back into the hall and shook my head. Someone with wide, brown eyes was standing behind one of the overgrown ferns that never seemed to change in any natural way. I thought he was hiding in the shadow of the pillar until he stepped out with a cup of water between his little pink hands.
“Hi.”
He stared up at me the way most little kids did when you tried to talk to them alone. In my mind it was their underdeveloped brains freezing up from the want to ask a thousand questions and the knowing how much trouble they’d be in if their mommies found out they were talking to strangers.
His mouth dropped open just slightly. I swear his eyes were starting to glaze over.
“Right, then,” I nodded, leaving the child in all his stupefied wonder.
The last pews were always practically empty. They’d been branded as the spot that slackers took and no one wanted that title in a town like this. If you dozed off there would definitely be consequences in the form of a family member smacking you awake with the provided and heavy hymns books, and since it was hard to hear much back there it took a lot of concentration to keep them lids up.
In this case the land of the late and lost would have to do. I felt like an unchecked coat, but mom would be looking for me after and being spotted in the nosebleeds was better than not being spotted at all.
“Your timing’s off, I think.”
There was only one other person in this back-right pew and they had glasses like the bottoms of coke bottles. She blinked at me and slid her legs forward across the cold stone floor beneath us. I’d never seen her before, not once in the seventeen years I’d been coming there.
“No one’s perfect,” I replied, but she was already looking over the crowd to the action up front.
In her lap were her purple-nailed hands, resting against each other’s palms on a fuzzy, plaid skirt. There was something child-like about the way she sat there, like she was just happy to be in that precise seat and got credit for trying whether she was actually believing or not. What was her reason to join us that day, I wondered, and how long had she been coming unnoticed by at least me?
“When I was little, I wanted to be a priest because I thought at night when everyone was gone, you could push all the seats together and make one big, long bed. I also thought about storing snacks in that little bit the father is standing in, but obviously the bed thing was cooler.”
“That…actually sounds really uncomfortable. Who would want to sleep on a pew? I don’t even want to sit on one for very long.”
“Then why are you here? Do you know how long these services can run?” she asked, pupils resembling huge, black bugs.
“I have to be here.”
Her eyebrows pulled together and that was when I realized she had freckles all over her face, very light but covering every inch just the same. I always found that strange when the person had blond hair.
“I don’t think that’s the point.”
Having already gotten distracted by the patterns on her skin, I said, “Point of what?”
“God,” she answered.
“I think that depends on what family you come from.”
We stared at each other, observing the differences through the echo of one voice, that of Father Ryan.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Reggie.”
“That’s a weird name for a woman.”
“Well, what’s yours?”
“Adrian.”
“I’ve only known male Adrians.”
That was right when Ian sat on the other side of this Adrian, sandwiching her between us. He did this in the fashion of someone not realizing what he’d done, only trying to rejoin in praising the lord without interrupting the actual Catholics.
Adrian turned at the same time to see him and whispered, “I see a pattern beginning.”
“Oh, no. He was right on time this morning.”
She gave a wonder-eyed glance my way and spoke so quietly it must have been only for herself. Why she was suddenly taking the volume of a dormouse, I have no idea, but it kept Ian from seeing who was nearby. I had an idea then. It was a stupid one.
With a wink in my neighbor’s direction - which she took blankly - I slid off the end of my seat and rounded to the spot behind Ian, taking the long way behind the pillars holding up the balcony. I snuck up behind that slightly-less-mess-of-hair and grabbed his shoulder while speaking into the other ear.
“Good morning, Asshat.”
“I wondered where you went.”
Before he could turn around to look at me, I grabbed his earlobe, pinching it hard and dragging him out of his seat. Somehow with the slight height difference and the act of two people walking with one connection he got loose. Still, he followed me out of the main area when he saw the look on my face. The talk probably wouldn’t be at room temperature. That’s why I just kept going until I hit fresh air. I could feel that I was going to go off – to “blow my top” as some might say – as soon as the huge door closed behind him. The little and slightly cowardly girl inside me that always had an eye to the future, to the outcomes of actions was tapping on my shoulder. She was whispering to me, You have no words prepared, your speech isn’t finished. You’ll make a fool of yourself instead of getting your point across…again. And we all know where those sensible words would go. It wasn’t anywhere they would stick.
“What are you so pissed about? That expression isn’t awesome on your face.”
I bent down and grabbed the biggest bunch of gravel I could fit in one hand then threw it all toward his head. What didn’t hit its mark rattled off the sandstone exterior behind as if it’d suddenly started to rain hail. He raised his arms a little too late to completely shield his face from the onslaught and when he uncovered his face again there was a split in his lip and some blood beginning to trickle from a dusty mark on his forehead.
“What the fuck was that for?!”
“Several things,” I said rather calmly.
“Would you like to explain further or just keep trying to kill me with the driveway?!”
“How many times is this going to happen with you?”
He was gingerly feeling his swelling lip and said, “I’d probably know how to answer that if you actually said what you meant.”
The sheer force of all the angry thoughts I wanted to get off my chest had me waving my hands wild like I was conducting air traffic toward my head.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Each syllable was spat out like a tiny shot.
He stared incredulously, expression wide as if I were the one who’d never followed the rules of logic.
“It doesn’t make sense that someone could be, literally, this stupid.”
“Did you mean me or you because I’m not making you talk to me right now. That’s your decision.”
“At this point I’m really not sure.”
“You recall last night. That should pretty much explain everything for you.”
I watched his mouth like he was speaking French and I’d only taken one class. My head physically could not straighten itself. I ran over those events in my head again and again, forcing myself to clear the confusion. It was such a nonsensical night that all I could really focus on was when he’d slapped me in the face and why I did and did not deserve it.
“Well, since it was all pretty much when I was half asleep or dizzy from head trauma, why don’t you map it out to me? Explain.”
“I wasn’t lying, Reggie. Did you think I said those things just for fun? Why would I travel all that way just to screw around?”
“Are you talking about…”
My face was going slack in levels; falling from fury down to settled, and even further into something like melting. It was my jaw that knew the truth before my head did.
“Don’t make me do this again.”
I squinted at him sidelong, trying to let out any question, and only said, “Huh?”
“That was a goodbye,” Ian answered.
I am not a sad person. I’m not overly joyful either, but that has nothing to do with anything. Right here we’re talking about sadness. I’ve not once in my life went wanting and there wasn’t really a time when I couldn’t get what I craved out of general boredom. Do you think that suffering makes a person? Or maybe it just swerves them to a better place ninety percent of the time? I don’t know if I believe that. But I mention it because right in this section and this scenario, I think of that. Even when it was happening. Perhaps I would’ve handled it better if I’d been accustomed to such sadness.
Ian had the grace to try to leave me alone after that, but I didn’t want to let it go.
“Why do you have to do this though?” I asked the question to his back.
It was pulling me down in seconds, or to be more accurate it was pulling real emotion out of me, all this truth. At the time I hadn’t seen my own tears since falling out of a tree when I was ten. There just wasn’t anything worth crying over if it wasn’t a broken bone. That’s why I couldn’t understand what was happening to the muscles in my face. I kept shaking my head trying to rid the frown that didn’t want to leave or take the quivering in my lip with it. I probably looked like a lunatic.
“Because I actually want to.”
“But her?” I asked with the worst frown yet pulling, “I can’t believe you want that. It won’t go anywhere…not anywhere good.”
“Um, yeah, actually. I don’t think you really see people, Reggie. You just take what’s general and easy and run with it. Maybe you should look deeper sometimes. Stop trying to control everyone and you wouldn’t be so alone all the time.”
“No, you’re going the wrong way again,” I barely got out before my face crumpled.
I practically burst and gasped with the surprise of it. All I can describe it as is walking down the street all normal only to have an alien bust out of your chest a second later. You don’t know the alien is there, not until it comes out to say hello.
Something wrong was coming and it was so terribly awful…but still undecided.
I knew I didn’t care this much so I felt betrayed by my insides. What the hell were they going on about?
“Reggie, come on. You’re making too big of a deal about this and really, you’re also making a scene,” Ian said quietly, standing over me.
I didn’t realize I was on my knees but it must have happened right when I blew up like a child.
“There’s no one even here,” I screeched.
Blinking away the tears wasn’t helping much and I didn’t want to look directly at him with the mess that I was, so I peered at him with my face turned slightly away, still being assaulted by foreign emotions that couldn’t be my own. There was no mistaking that he pitied me. I went on nonetheless because I had a point to make.
“Just leave, please. Don’t go back in there and never even speak to me again or any of those people inside.”
“I can’t do that. She’s waiting for me and you know it.”
“Who gives a rat’s ass,” I sniffed, adjusting my palms on my thighs, “I can feel it. If you don’t listen to me everything will become so much worse. Just go the other way, Ian. Just this once, one more time try out what I say.”
I know that I’d already said the attack of tears had me whirling, but there was something below that. This sorrow wasn’t my own. There are so many things in life I am uncertain about. The idea that you run into specific people for a reason isn’t one of them. Sometimes, when they have no one, a stranger must do the job of warning them. The universe doesn’t necessarily care, but it has a balance and making sure we know our choices is part of that. Someone had to know what would cause his death. He wasn’t looking for it and he wouldn’t know.
He finally gave me the look I was waiting for; he thought I’d lost my senses. But even so, he knelt down in front of me and took both my hands, making sure I was paying attention to what he had to say now.
There are those scars, I thought. I could barely make them out through the tears. I almost turned my hands out to grasp his instead, as if it was the way it should be, me enveloping him.
“I know you’re trying. Give up. That’s all I can tell you. In a million years it wouldn’t be worth it.”
The wind blew my hair to stick wetly against my cheeks. My eyes kept tearing, thinking over the fact that all this time he’d been here to connect with Anna Reeve. Even after I’d warned him off, he probably went right along meeting her. Who was I kidding? Of course, he did. She told me about it to my face.
I met his gaze directly for the first time that day. There wasn’t even a foot between us. It was the clearest day in his eyes, sky so blue and clouds so puffy that it was like some kind of tacky wallpaper glued up in a hurry. Good for fooling someone who’d never seen inside your house before.
“You know what?”
He leaned his head with a question. I took a good look at him, nose slightly red because of the chill and mouth closed but quirked to the side. His face would never look any older than this. The thought came out of nowhere. I felt sick to my stomach instantly.
With a last sniff trying to compose myself, I tore my hands from his and shoved him away.
“You’re right.”
I fumbled to get my keys out of my coat pocket and clumsily stood to get away from him before he could get off his back. It was best if I didn’t say anything more and even more so if he kept quiet as well. I didn’t think that was going to happen if I stayed any longer.
“Reggie,” I thought I could hear hurt in his voice.
I took long, quick strides for my car door, unlocked it, and slammed the thing closed on the belt of my coat. Another wave of dread was hitting and I knew I couldn’t handle it with him close by. I didn’t need to make things worse if he wouldn’t believe me. Let him enjoy the rest of his day without the image of my crumpled face floating in his mind.
Through the windshield while backing the car up I saw Ian stand to his feet. That was as far as he went. No dramatic running for the car scene or trying to yell at me through firmly closed windows.
He did tilt his head as if he thought I might run him over.
This part is called “No One Gave Me a Reason (To Hope)”. It’s a pretty fitting title for the end, don’t you think?
“This is really freaking weird.”
“I hope you’re not talking about my underwear.”
Heather glared over the almost packed boxes on my bed dividing us. I was glad for the space because she looked like she might punch me in the face and begin to cry. I wasn’t about to get all mushy over leaving; it wasn’t my style. Even though I wasn’t exactly elated to go, I wasn’t fond of staying either.
“You’re always here, Reggie. It’s like my big toe is detaching from my foot and going off on its own to start a band.”
“I’m not starting a band, but I am a little insulted by that simile.”
“What are we gonna do,” she threw her hands up, her voice hopeless.
That was when the tears really began their journey. She grabbed at the pillow in her lap like she wanted to rip the purple fabric in half. Sniffles came out of her quietly like she was trying to hide it, her head down but not completely out of view.
“Heather.”
I heard a mumble that was quickly overshadowed by a sob or two.
“Heather,” I repeated.
She peeked up at me through a curtain of wiry curls. I hadn’t thought she would be this much of a mess. Her mascara was falling down her cheeks in little grey streams.
“We’re not even that close. It’s not like we know that much about each other. You just show up here when you’re bored.”
“What,” she squeaked, “You think I don’t know you?!”
“I didn’t say that. We just never did anything like stay up late bleeding out our deepest secrets to one another.”
“Oh, really?! How about this? I know that you pour your milk and then your cereal in the morning and that you can’t stand that little screeching noise whenever Styrofoam rubs together.”
“Those are both very basic,” I interrupted, to which she held up a hand to quiet me.
“Alright. When you’re home alone you slide around the house on your socks and hum stuff like Simon and Garfunkel. You don’t do that when your parents are here because your mom hates their music and your dad tries to sing along. And this, right here,” she searched around the boxes surrounding us, snatching a t-shirt from one, “you never got this shirt. It was your uncle’s, but you kept it after you fell in the little pond in their backyard. They hadn’t cleaned it in a year, so he wouldn’t let you go home all wet and smelly even though your aunt said it was fine. He never asked for it back and then he died. You wear it sometimes to sleep.”
I stared at her, quite surprised. There was still frustration in her expression, blue eyes all misty, but she’d impressed even herself. That was probably the moment to apologize or say something important I knew about her. The shock of the weird little habits she’d noticed still had me rattled. I hadn’t thought about why I wore that shirt in a very long time. The fabric was soft, but I hated the emblem for his station on the front, not just because it was slightly crooked, but because the little fireman’s hat in the center was tacky.
“Well…um…”
Heather sat back down on the bed with an ungraceful plop. The shirt she’d dropped was hanging half-in, half-out of the box it came from. I had to stop myself from going to fix that immediately.
“Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to do the same. I was just making a point, so the next time I start crying – which will probably be in the next five minutes – you won’t make a big deal about it.”
“Okay…but I know stuff. Don’t think I’m so selfish that I don’t pay attention to one of the people I’m most around.”
She gave me a pointed look and even I had to admit that was a lame lie. What was there about Heather that was insignificant and precisely not at the same time? She chewed on her hair sometimes, but I didn’t think that was something she wanted pointing out.
“I’ve got it,” I shouted, standing to my feet fast enough that the room went black for a moment.
“I don’t think you do but give it a try I guess.”
Like I’d solved the puzzle of life, I clapped my hands together then pointed to her, “This is something you probably don’t even know. Todd. You and Todd, specifically, are going to get real close, especially after I leave. The little wedge that is me between you will be unlodged!”
“Well, yeah. Who else am I going to talk to?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. You don’t get it. When I say close, I mean very close,” I said, raising my eyebrows at her.
“What?!”
“You’ve got to know that a little bit. I mean, it was written out forever ago. It has to have been.”
“Hey, Reggie? I know I’ve said this before, but…you’re a crackpot.”
“Sure. That’s old news.”
She stood grabbing her jacket off my pillow, apparently ready to leave.
“I would hug you. You’d probably bite me though.”
I sighed, ready to open my bubble if only for just this kind of occasion.
“Go ahead. I’ll hold myself off.”
“Really,” she practically broke her neck turning back around, “but…you’ve never let me do that.”
“Heather, I’m not heartless. I’m moving like an hour away and you’re going off to Virginia next year. I think I can handle one good hug. Plus, you made me feel like shit with that whole, you do this because of this, and, you wear that because of that, bit.”
Heather was on me in a blink, tripping over herself and the boxes just to squeeze the oxygen out of my lungs. It was a really strange situation in which I had no idea what to do with my arms. They were hanging limply over hers where she crushed herself into me. The smell of her – a familiar and slight scent of some kind of spicy flower – was surprisingly strong then, when usually I rarely could point it out.
“This is the most awkward hug ever,” she said over my shoulder, “and I love it.”
I was somewhat hoping something like that wouldn’t happen. Before I knew it, she’d be sneaking these puppies in each time we ran into each other. With a dramatic huff, she leaned away and picked her coat back up off the floor.
“Okay, I better go now. Are you sure you don’t want help with anything? Not even unpacking? This is a lot of boxes.”
“I’ve got it. I’m a big girl with surprising upper body strength.”
She was already standing in the open doorway and looked back with a smirk.
“I’ve seen you opening jars. That was a false statement.”
I shrugged and started throwing shoes in a box. They rattled against the cardboard louder than I’d intended.
“Before I really go-”
I jumped and added, “I actually thought you were gone.”
With a fake smile she went on to add, “Anyway, before I leave, did you…did you say farewell to everybody?”
I knew what she meant with that nosey question by the way she nervously rattled at the lock on the doorknob.
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should?”
“I’m gonna answer with a hard “fuck that”. There’s a lot to do today and I just don’t have the time to get into it now. It’s not worth the time. Hell, it’s all a lost cause anyway.”
“Alright,” she dropped her hand looking forlorn again, “I guess I’ll see you, Reggie. Good luck in the city and don’t forget to call me.”
“Will do.”
-
-
-
-
The city is a weird place. Not in the way people usually consider it to be - like someone walking around in a tutu, reciting Shakespeare when they're a forty-year-old man - but the way in which it will or won’t accept you. It’s almost like stepping into the skin of your future self the instant you cross the border. The place knows a different you than you’ve ever been. You’ll either be okay with it or this feeling will wear you down until you’re forced somewhere else.
My first solid day in Pittsburgh was disappointingly mellow so I instantly knew which path mine would be. I was now owned by this place. It took me on like a bowl of decent porridge. Like a tub full of water that once you stick your toe in you can’t feel where it’s submerged, the temperature is the same as your skin. I guess I was good enough.
This little collection of ramblings ends that night, after the time it took two bulky dudes to heave everything under my name into the bottom section of a row house and most of its afternoon. The temperature was starting to drop with the sun again which was good and bad. I liked the need for a jacket, it was somewhere to put my hands as I roamed the streets. On the flipside, chill only brought with it more chill. Soon enough everything would be going to sleep around me.
No one came to the city unless they had no plans of going back or there was some “business” to attend to. I was the first of my family to run away. Chapman’s owned Clarion and for the foreseeable future it would stay that way. I didn’t like owning something someone else might have earned. Not anymore, anyway.
I suppose I should’ve been afraid on my own in a place I’d only visited maybe once a year. A lot of people were, and you could see it in their faces or hunched shoulders as they walked past, especially at seven forty-eight at night. All I could think about was how wonderfully new my surroundings were and that the lack of pedestrians in that hour was only a high point. There was always someone looking or watching in my hometown, waiting to see what you’d do wrong next.
But, back to the point. Pittsburgh was a relatively quiet stroll if you chose the right moment. Obviously, I had because nearing a section of parks and train stops the only sound to break the silence and the still was that of hand-crafted music. It was a lonely sort of tune, the strings practically crying out for someone to come near. The song dragged me to it. I had no idea what it was at the time. Years later I was able to finally place it after hearing the piece through the hands of a friend and the keys that they worked on. All I knew was that that night I needed to see the person’s face as they played.
They were hard to find at first, the music bouncing off all the structures and trees nearby. It turned out they were leaning singularly against the pillar of a light post on a corner. Only the mostly empty street was behind them. It was a bean-pole of a man straight out of old fables with a violin resting on his shoulder. His eyes were closed as I rounded him. An expression of - or really a mask of - gentle sadness on his face was almost distracting enough to take the music from my ears. Everything about him was a little tattered but the instrument stayed pristine, its bow swaying back and forth against the rhythm his fingers made on the neck. With every strike he made, the light would gleam off the tool’s varnish. It reminded me of the shiny bits fishermen use to make their catch.
A few commuters passed between us during the long while I stood there, stopping for different measurements of a moment to drop pocket change into a white bowl at his feet. It didn’t look like a planned setup that he had. To me, it seemed like he’d come out to this place in order to let something go. Perhaps as an afterthought he decided it wouldn’t hurt to make some cash. His collection plate just reminded me too much of a chamber pot for me to think it was anything else.
As his story was weaving in my mind and the blue tune went on and on, I reached in my pockets for money I’d stuffed away earlier. It was only a ten partnered with a nickel and two pennies. Almost like he could feel me searching all the contents of each pocket I wore, he looked up once to see I was there. With his eyes opened a switch had been flipped to where he only looked curious. The music stayed the same of course and only went deeper into the loneliness that it was when he shut them again a minute later.
My one hand was stuffed into the right front of my jeans, the other holding what I’d found, when someone went hobbling past in the background. They were way out of arm's reach, crossing the intersection with only a street light to highlight them under the shadow of the night and the bridge they were under.
I’m not sure what it was, maybe that night was just going to be full of distractingly interesting things that I had to check out, but the lurking passerby and their unsteady gait dragged me along. I dropped the rest of my cash with a clink into the violinist’s pot and left to follow.
As both of our steps went on, I began to wonder if this person knew where they were going. They started out straight as an arrow at first and then decided that winding among the increasing masses of buildings would get them wherever faster. Were they looking for someone? I thought maybe I ended up stalking a stalker, but there didn’t seem to be any sign that a third person kept popping up where we did. There wasn’t even a pattern; they just half-stumbled in the direction the wind was blowing them.
For only a second did I stop to pull my jacket close and zip it. The wind was picking up and there was no sun to battle against it. When I looked up again my point of interest had flown out of sight. The street lamps were shining across wet pavement from an earlier rain. The only people left around were two folks exchanging cash for something I didn’t really want to know about and one open shop in a row of a dozen closed ones. It was a stand for flowers and bagels.
“Sensible enough,” I muttered.
“You look lost there, lady.”
She looked like she belonged there, carved straight out of the bricks around her and the concrete below, the young girl working the booth. Her right foot was up on a chipping, navy-colored stool, the other tucked beneath her in the little spindles at the bottom of the throne she sat on. She may have been about sixteen but she was smoking a cigarette like she’d done it since birth. The cloud it made got sucked up through her nose just as fast as she blew it out.
“I may be…but I was actually following someone and lost their trail. Have you seen a person with a limp? I have a hunch they were male, but I don’t like to assume.”
Another puff of smoke was blown before she adjusted the toboggan hiding most of her braids and jumped down lithely. She looked like she was trapped out of her element by a wave of daisies, roses, and lilies with two machines still spinning bagels to her left.
Dropping and grinding her cancer stick into the dirt she said, “Not that I care…stalking people around here usually just ends in some bad shit on either or both ends.”
“Does that mean you haven’t seen him?”
“Who?”
I stared at her, bewildered.
“What do you mean who? I’ve only been describing one person.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t do it very well. ‘Maybe a dude,’ and, ‘could possibly have a limp’. That’s nothing.”
“How many guys do you see dragging their legs behind them as they try not to ram into the walls and parked cars around them?”
She gave a ridiculous look side to side and asked, “You do know where we are?”
“Okay, how many in the last five minutes?” I retorted, crossing my arms with impatience.
“Look, I’ll make you a deal. I’m getting a little sick of this ring-around anyway. You buy something for me and let me tell you exactly what I saw.”
“I don’t think I know you that well just yet…”
“No. Buy something from the stand. I live off this place.”
“Oh…I don’t, I just gave what I had to this street musician back there,” I started pointing like she could see through the buildings and everything inside them.
“I’ll open a tab in your name.”
“You can do that?”
“Sure. You’re a chick. You’ll need flowers again…or a taste of the donut’s lame cousin.”
“This doesn’t seem like the type of place to open a tab. I wouldn’t even expect you to take cards or give receipts.”
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels, pulling one out to light up again. I was curious as to whether her voice had always been that rough – the kind that instantly makes someone sound worldly – or it was because of those.
“Do you worry this much at the grocery store because I would hate to be behind you in line.”
“Fine,” I jerked a bundle of Black-eyed Susans out of their little holding cone, “what do you need now? Name and number?”
“Both will be fine. Are you sure that’s all? I think those Shastas would look pretty nifty inter-mingled between in a nice vase.”
I was positive the word ‘nifty’ had never been uttered from her nicotine coated lips. I grabbed the next bunch she nodded too anyway. A scrap receipt was shoved my way, the pen laying across it missing its cap and chewed on at the end.
“Alright. Now, what you wanna do is head straight back until you hit Elm Street. That’s where you lost him. You went too far coming to me.”
“What?! How would you have even seen who I was talking about that far back?”
“So, you know where it is?” she asked expectantly.
“Obviously.”
“You don’t have to bust a vessel. I see all kinds of stuff from here. This isn’t a booming business, so people watching is what ya got to spend the time. Plus, he did come past here and then turned around…just like you need to be doing if you want to catch him.”
With one index finger while the smoke hung off her mouth, she made a quick spin around motion, hazel eyes wide and shining very green against her darker skin.
I then realized how long I’d been standing there chatting. All the turns the person had taken before, it would be a miracle if I came upon them again. I hugged the bouquets to my chest and started to run but ended up turning right back. Her expression was quite judging.
“Did you happen to see what he looked like, like any special markings or weirdness I could spot him with?”
“What, like a cow?”
“Whatever your name is, I’m running out of time and you just got through mentioning that fact,” I snapped.
“He might’ve had some facial hair, nothing extraordinary…just brown scruff. I think I saw a busted lip-”
“Thanks,” I cut her off, continuing my moment of rushing away.
The curb was broken and cracked into the walk just as it curved to the left. I didn’t see this until I was tripping over it, almost sprawling out into the street. The flowers fell limp in the gutter and an old man cackled at me from the other side of the street. I do believe he was highly intoxicated. What I’d dropped just looked too sad lying in the dust for me to not try and grab up what I could, but time was being wasted just because I was a klutz. Eventually the pressure became too much and I left with the bundle I’d rescued.
“Aye, you missed one,” the man yelled after me, his voice slurred and whistling.
I imagined him having about three teeth.
This part of town was even darker and entirely empty. There were a few lights on in the windows above; people getting ready to turn down for the night probably. Mostly though, I saw the shadowed lobbies of the apartment buildings, fluorescent lights flickering toward the back, and the walls of used-to-be businesses. The most common thing was the trash collected in the nooks and crannies of the street and even that wasn’t as often as before. It was a sign that either the people that passed here in the day were extensively clean or life wasn’t something that was usually common much if at all, day or night.
I’d gone about three blocks straight when I saw something dark on the pavement. The toe of my sneaker had almost missed it but not quite. The color was impossible to miss against the white rubber, even with the green hew of street lights muddling it. My shoe had slid right into a small puddle of blood. It was about the diameter of an orange I’d guess, but it still highlighted the weird feeling that was beginning to bubble up in my chest. I no longer felt secure in the darkness of these streets. It wasn’t quite as fun when even the infrequent signs of life were quickly flickering out and the walls were popping up with fewer and fewer windows around you. I felt like I was in a film of shadows and something was coming for me. The ominous music was starting. My choices were as bad as ever and getting worse because my only idea was to follow the red trail ahead.
Why wouldn’t a limp be followed by a little line of blood?
It was fine.
Honestly, I was surprised I still hadn’t spotted them after another three blocks. The blood just kept going, varying as I went. What would I do if I found someone horribly injured? There hadn’t been a single pay phone along the way. Did I know how to make a tourniquet? Maybe the person had a weapon and would just kill me before I could screw that up. People were so ungrateful sometimes.
The road ahead started to split into a wide ‘V’ shape, the gap filled with more walkways, and finally a natural part of the neighborhood with trees and real trash cans. The whole area seemed rather small compared with the rest of the city, like it was old and not meant for real, average sized cars…or people. The trees were even tiny and made me want to duck as I passed under, even though the lowest branches had to be a half a foot higher than the top of my head. I suddenly felt like those creepy people everyone talks about seeing roam the streets at night doing something considered normal whenever the sun was out. It was only the fact that you were alone and it was dark and you were carrying a bouquet of crumpled flowers that made it in any way abnormal.
Up above the tops of the mini forest section I could see white spires, the tallest with a cross poking up at the sky. It was a strange sight to see in the city. Churches didn’t seem as if they could do much in this place; like cleaning a puddle of water with a broom in a rainstorm. Still, when I glanced down again and saw that my trail was gone, something started to pull me in that direction instead. Maybe it was a sort of running toward home or I was just caught up in another curiosity, but I walked on across the street and to the triangle shaped patch of trees.
I felt like I was part of a universe inside a universe. Like the street was an area I couldn’t touch from these branches, blocked by a wall of glass or a scientific force field. The strongest urge to walk closer to it and reach my arm out was tugging at me, but it wasn’t as tight a hold as the church. Eventually, it didn’t matter. The patch expanded outward until the roads and their buildings were distant views on either side of me and I was in a forest of darkness. If I heard a wolf howling in the distance it wouldn’t be too far off base.
“Alright. This is going on further than I’d thought. It’s now officially night. Everything’s okay though, because the city accepted me. Nothing horribly life-changing would happen when you’re part of the place. That’s like saying the wall of the bank I just passed could be attacked by a mugger. Nonsense. The worst there could be is someone peeing on it…”
I paused with that realization, crumpling my brow to the distance until I saw what was staring me in the face. Blue street lamps were shining on something flat and pale some little ways off, peeking through the foliage. But as I squinted, trying to focus on some sort of landmark, something rustled off to my right.
The funny thing about the next situation was that I started clutching the flowers for dear life. It sounded like someone was lunging and trying to half sprint through the park. Each time they caught up a little speed there was a dry ‘thunk’ and the slow swish of plants leading to a brief moment of silence. I was sure it was coming toward me.
Then it was only a few feet in front of me. The moon hadn’t been out all night. I was searching the shadows with only whatever my own eyes could see. Everything looked the same; blacker blobs in slightly less blackness. I stepped back just as it started its lunge-sprint again, crushing a stick under my shoe with a loud snap and ramming into the trunk of a thin tree. This time I could see it stopping with a crash into some ferns. It was definitely a person blob, hunched over just slightly.
I could feel my eyelids open ridiculously wide, trying to see clearly what might attack. It wasn’t working. Since when was I afraid of whatever was in the dark? I once threw a freaking bat at someone. Granted I was in my own house the entire time.
I decided to freeze against the tree, blending into its bark and holding my breath. The person moved again, either looking toward me or the exact opposite direction, but it was impossible to tell. They were panting pretty hard, but something about its raspiness just made the dread inside me worse. My entire body jerked as they let out one harsh cough. I was internally cursing myself for being such a pansy when they abruptly hurried off toward the building in a rush of leaves making me do it again. This one walk was beginning to have more excitement than an entire year in my hometown…and I wasn’t about to let it stop.
I couldn’t stay here anyway. I might as well head toward the only source of light around, just like gimpy had.
My path eased forward slowly, every inch of me still jumpy as hell. I was just waiting for someone to speed forward from behind a tree after hearing that I’d followed them on. But, after they really had disappeared, the park became relatively silent. The only sounds were a few car horns in the distance and the tapping of things living in this patch of nature. Could have been an animal, but it also could have been human. I’ll never know.
The tree line finally came up in front of me. As it stopped, a kind of courtyard began and went on until it hit the stone steps of a church. It was obviously Christian, or at least the long-haired man hanging on the front looked like Jesus. It reminded me of an overly large and fancy man stuck in a crowd of ordinary folks. The buildings on the other edges of the courtyard would clearly block any view one would get through the bottom windows. It seemed like a harsh thing to do, shoving everything so close in one space, but at least they hadn’t covered up the front door.
I stepped out of the dirt onto hard stone. Clearly the space could and had been used as a road in the day. At that moment though, pillars coming up to my mid-section were sticking up on either end of the area where the perfectly-square and white bricks cut off and the asphalt began. I was sure it would be a bumpy little ride passing through. Nothing about the area was unpleasant or claustrophobia inducing, but it had a silence about it similar to a graveyard. I could find no obvious stones though to make the whole scene fit together. Maybe all the black and empty windows surrounding were stand-ins.
In the next moment, something happened that was both bone-chilling and hilarious all wrapped into one with a nice little bow. Once again it was like being in a movie, the ones where you can never tell if the killer is actually going to stab the girl or boop her in the nose. This feeling was only brought on because I have the ever-lasting trait of never really finding anything serious until it’s too late. There was a terrible groan that rang out across the open air, exactly behind me where I wouldn’t be looking, and to the right of the church. It was a sound that would cause anyone to tense up completely, making the best of efforts to disappear into themselves and freeze that way until the threat was gone. I wanted to turn around and look, but at the same time didn’t know if I wanted to see my death. Was I that sort of person?
A hacking cough followed that thought up, which gave me the courage to spin on my heel and quickly search the vicinity for what or who would hopefully not come rushing at me.
Nothing was there, save the bushes and a bench or two.
As if on cue, a single cricket began to chirp its three beat rhythm. I straightened up and turned another slow circle checking around me. Unless I was losing my eyesight, not a soul was around. I knew what I’d heard. Can you hallucinate from adrenaline? Is that a thing? I’d only eaten soup from a can for my last meal. I didn’t think it could be conjuring the noises of pain into reality.
I let my feet take me to that side of the courtyard for a closer search, thinking I would find nothing. Whoever had been here had probably moved along or went back the way we’d come, through the woods. Maybe they were suspicious of me. I was, after all, the one following them.
On the two benches closest to the church were plaques with the names of two different people, a quote for each, and their dates. They were strange, almost out of place.
Henry Eckley
1905-1972
And he went in the world and toiled
In his own appointed way;
And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was well and gay.
-John Hay
Berdetta Paulie
1903-1972
Tis the Last rose of Summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go to sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leave o’er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendship decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
-Thomas Moore
They were totally unrelated and unlike one another in every way other than the end dates. It made me wonder. Why were they printed here, next to this church specifically? Were these lines also written on their graves? And then, following up that thought, I stared down at my feet with the idea that maybe these two lonely benches were actually headstones. I took several steps back out of respect, feeling like a kid realizing what they thought was normal was wrong…like drawing all over the freshly painted walls.
Something scraped across the stones to my left, making me jerk my head that way, away from the words that had grasped my attention. A shoe was poking out of the shadow the steps created. When it moved again, I realized it was still being worn. One leg sprawled out into the light as the owner laid in darkness. So, they hadn’t left?
One more pitiful, wet cough came from the person’s chest. Not that I had been planning on it, I knew I couldn’t leave. The trail of blood now led to where they hid. I’d missed it coming in, it being so far off from my own path.
“Hello?”
I could see their body jump just slightly at the sudden noise.
“Are you hurt?”
They started again. I walked forward some more and tried to distinguish their features without any light on hand. All I could make out was the humanness of their shape and the way they looked to be holding their side. In usual Reggie fashion, I got frustrated and pulled a stupid move by grabbing their exposed foot and sliding them out of their corner closer to me. The face came into view all battered and bloody, but after a few hard blinks it caused this next bit to burst forth.
“Holy fucking shit. The prodigal son has returned.”
“Go fuck yourself,” he hacked again, weakly jerking his foot back.
“How do I move practically out of state and still run into you of all people?”
“I can answer that easily,” he spit bloody with a busted lip, sitting up, “Because you’re a dumbass who moves to the city alone, wanders around at night, and thinks, I’ll go precisely where no one can hear my screams. That’s how you ran into me.”
He seemed pleased with his answer, aside from the fact that he was beaten to a pulp.
“The only people pulling that kind of move…are desperate. Have you become a whore since I left, Reggie? Is that how you’re filling the void? Chasing after the injured one’s who can’t get away too, I see.”
I did the only natural thing and kicked him right in the spot where his body was meeting the ground. To my own surprise, I felt instantly horrible. He fell over, clenching his jaw and practically screaming through his teeth. Something about his whole left side was sort of limp.
“What happened,” I practically barked, assuming his condition was a result of his own actions once again.
He didn’t bother rolling over, just stayed with his face smashed in the bricks like a dead fish, panting. I walked around his outstretched legs when he didn’t answer and sat down to stare in his face while I waited.
Blood was crusted on his stubbled chin and cheeks, some browned and a lot of it still a deep, fresh red. His hair had gotten a little longer up top, falling over his eyes. After all this time, when it used to be something akin to excitement I felt, I found pity in looking at him. It came from weeks of pushing this person out of my system. Something about having my advice completely disregarded and basically spit on made the whole situation just slightly I-told-you-so, but what I didn’t expect was the amount of regret I would have lodged in me.
I pushed his lank hair back on his head carefully, thinking of how much of a waste it all was.
“Are you going to answer me?”
I finished fixing his hair and pulled my hand away, cocking my head to the side to meet the angle of his gaze. His one good eye, still intensely bloodshot against the grey iris, was focused past my knee and toward the trees.
“Are you going to kick me in the ass again?”
His voice came out garbled with his cheeks all squished.
“Depends on how much time we have here.”
He let out a long, painful-sounding sigh and then mumbled something with a groan.
“What was that?”
With a little more force, he repeated himself.
“Too bad for you it’s not gonna be much.”
“Well, no…it doesn’t look like you’ll be getting up anytime soon.”
“I know,” he answered, with a weird little smile that quickly faded into a grimace.
“Tell me what happened,” I ordered calmly.
Unexpectedly, his good hand searched around until it found my own, resting one against the other in my lap. He grabbed a hold of the closest and held on, not like he wanted it for any other reason than to have it in his.
“Ian.”
I watched the thoughts wanting to fade behind his eye. I also saw when he forced himself back into the conversation, as if the focus were a light shining from somewhere inside his head; glowing when he was about to speak.
“Reggie…how are you?”
His voice came out as a sarcasm infused, polite bit of conversation in the volume of an inside-voice, like we were greeting each other at a cocktail party or something.
“Seriously, you’re bleeding, probably for at least the fourth time since I’ve known you.”
His eye finally rolled up to meet mine, a complete sense of shock written on his features.
With utter amazement and anxiety, he replied, “I am?!”
I gave him a withering look which he did not accept and then his expression went flat.
“Did you know that you talk entirely too much?”
Half a minute passed before I went on without him, saying the first thing that was gnawing at my mind suddenly.
“I had a dream about you.”
His groan – most likely that of irritation – sounded like a low rumble.
“Do you want to know what happened in it?”
“Not really, but there isn’t much I can do about it and I know you’re as stubborn as a mule, so…”
“Anyway, in the dream,” he cut me off by releasing my hand and painfully shoving himself up to a sitting position again, but I continued with my story when he was settled.
“In the dream, my whole house was completely flooded with water. Think of a fish tank modeled after every aspect, every little detail, of where I live.”
“I’m assuming the house I visited and not your new one.”
I nodded, “Correct. As I was saying, I woke up with complete calm in the dream and as soon as that happened my body began to float up off the mattress. It was like I was heavy as a stone until my eyes opened. Doesn’t really have anything to do with the whole story, I just thought it was weird.”
He blinked at me – well, with one set of eyelids– and added, “Yep.”
The blood wasn’t slowing down, I remember noticing. Each time he opened his mouth I could see it in his teeth. I briefly wondered if he was on some sort of medication that thinned it before I was distracted by my own tale again.
“Whenever I realized what was happening, I just started to swim downstairs, which I won’t lie, was pretty cool to do. So, I made it all the way down the stairs and knew I had to turn through the hall and go toward the kitchen. You probably remember that it has one of those swinging doors without the little porthole window things, but here the door was completely gone. I could see straight into the kitchen to the outside door. Out of total curiosity I kept on until I hit the empty door frame, completely fine in the way of oxygen, and immediately glanced to the left of the kitchen. You were there, cemented to the floor by your feet with your arms and hair floating up like regular. Your back was facing me and for some reason I was really bothered by that. This immense sense of fear started tugging down at my stomach…and then, like they’d been there the entire time, this massive dark figure came floating out toward you from that little corner beside the fridge. You know, the way it faces the stove you wouldn’t be able to see anything on the other side?”
He shook his head ever so slightly, a gesture so small that I couldn’t tell if he didn’t know or was just thinking the format of the kitchen over. I pulled my foot out from under me, feeling tingles rushing to the skin as the blood came back.
“Anyway, the figure came out just a couple feet in front of you and way clear away from me. Before I could try to swim over, mostly because I thought you were unconscious, you did something weird. Your whole body convulsed hard once, hard enough for me to feel the motion in the water around me. Then it did it again and again, worse each time, feet still planted until your spine arched back so I could see your face clearly. It was upside down albeit, but still,” I shrugged, “The shadow had stopped, watching you jerk around as much as I was.”
Now, sensing the end, his dark brow furrowed. It made the swollen skin around his upper and lower lid pucker and a little part of me cringed.
“You smiled,” I finished, putting my hands back together.
“Huh?”
“That was it. You smiled your cheesiest grin like I’d said something stupid and I woke up…for real this time.”
We stared at each other in deep silence until he asked, “Reggie, could you do me a big favor?”
“I guess so.”
“Do you see this building behind me? It would be a big help if you could carry me through those front doors.”
He wasn’t laughing about the favor, which I found odd.
“You need inside the church? Why?”
“Because, despite everything, it seemed like a good place to die.”
Even when people joke about things like that, my heart likes to do this goofy leap up to my throat then down again, not really ever settling peacefully where it used to be.
There was nothing I could say really, so I gave him a pointed look.
“Or…here is fine, apparently,” he replied.
I reached forward while talking, gingerly pulling back his jacket collar to find wounds. Most of the blood was hidden lower down. If I wanted to see the real damage, I would practically have to undress him, but he wasn’t wearing a shirt anyway.
“I don’t expect you to know this, but the chapels do close down at night. There won’t be a soul in there and even if there was a slight possibility that there were, the entrance is definitely locked.”
“How is anyone supposed to find sanctuary?”
“Any disasters and/or emotional upheavals must be placed conveniently between the hours of eight and six weekdays if you’re Catholic…mostly.”
“Well that’s not helpful.”
“Why do you think you’re going to die, anyway? And since when is religion an important part of that sort of ritual?”
“Just for the situation’s sake, I’ll answer that second question first. Otherwise, it’ll never be said.”
“Sounds alright,” I replied with a drawl to my words.
Anxiety was building inside me, almost like my body knew before I did what was going to happen with the rest of the night.
“To start with,” he used the fully functioning arm to lift one of his outstretched legs and adjust it next to me, “religion isn’t…important, per se. It’s the thing you do when the end is coming. I mean, if there’s no one there on the other side and you ask for forgiveness, praise Jesus, cleanse me of my sins please lord and all that jazz. It won’t hurt anything. If there is and you don’t,” he shrugged.
I didn’t have much to say to that and looked off to the forlorn windows of the buildings about us, thinking. The church was a king among paupers; cold and ornately dressed but without all the colors of a soul.
Little comebacks kept floating to my mind like bugs to the surface of a pond. I could take offense to how he thought he could take my beliefs on at the supposed last minutes of his life - like slapping a band aid on a leaking dam - and still be taken. All that had been bullied into my brain my entire life. That seemed useless though, as much so as the rest of my thoughts and feelings. And that did seem to be the way of things.
“The point is to realize this a little earlier than that I think.”
He smirked and just watched my irritated expression for a moment. I heard the cricket sing again now that it knew it would be heard.
“Why aren’t you dragging me down the street kicking, Regg? You always want a reason to shove me through some hospital doors.”
I turned my head back to look at him, calmly eyeing the crusted beard and the look of curiosity it covered.
“You are a downright fucking mess.”
“That’s honest.”
“Do you always expect whoever’s closest at the time of incident to take care of you or is this attitude saved especially for me? Technically, you gave up that right.”
My sentences had started off muted and matter-of-fact and only escalated in intensity. I wasn’t angry. I just wanted him to finally listen to what I had to say. Maybe force would work.
“You know you’re not going to leave me,” he almost whispered, reaching under his jacket and staring at the blood that had collected on his palm when he pulled it away.
“What?”
“You won’t leave me here. Reggie, you’re a bitch but you’re basically my bitch.”
“Excuse me,” I practically screeched, but he was holding the red palm up in defense.
“That came out wrong, I’ll admit. Sorry. I meant, you can be a total asshole just like me and there-in lies the problem. There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m dying in your head and only a truly heartless, piece of shit kind of person walks off, away from someone who’s last minutes could be spent totally alone if they do. That’s what I mean, Reggie. You’re my bitch and I’m your bitch.”
For a moment, I really wanted to be seriously offended, angry and ready to start swinging. I just couldn’t take him seriously enough to do so and snorted.
Instead, still laughing, I said, “We should get that printed on some shirts.”
“You’re paying for it, not me.”
After that he started trying to get to his feet and failed at it miserably. With a thud, his butt hit the bricks again, the knuckles of his dead hand cracking on such solid material. I couldn’t tell which part of that mess of movements had made him wince.
He sounded incredulous when he barked, “Are you going to sit there staring at me all night or do something to help?”
“I don’t know what you want me to do. I told you five minutes ago that the church would be locked.”
“Just get over here and put your shoulders under my arm.”
“Which? The limp noodle or the surely bruised one?”
He glared, “Does it look like I care?”
“Why?”
With a short and perturbed glance my way from him, I asked again, “Why do you need to get up so badly?”
“Because it’s good enough,” he shouted, clenching one fist in the filthy jeans of his knee, “If I can’t have the actual face of God, I’ll settle for his steps.”
“Ian, it’s not worth the trouble. You’ll have time to come back another day or even in the morning-”
I stopped talking, wondering what he was doing. His right hand furiously tore at his clothes. Well, as much as it could on its own.
“Here! If you won’t fucking listen to me…I will show you how much time I have.”
But then, rather fizzling out the energy of the situation, he fell over…again.
“You. Are. Tragic.”
With a small huff and his jacket halfway off his shoulders, he went slack, accepting his fate; he was meant to be on the ground.
I rolled off my butt onto my knees, looking down. With one hand I unzipped and peeled the rest of his coat back. The fabric was sickeningly heavy in my hand, but that wasn’t precisely what had grasped my attention. Now that his skin was exposed to what little light we had around us, I could see his left side had been turned into a collection of broken flaps of skin, like bloody butcher meat. If I was really going to describe it well, it looked as if he’d just stood there while someone went to town, piercing his flesh with something thick and obviously sharp repeatedly and like it was necessary.
Suddenly, my mouth filled with saliva which meant I could vomit any second if I so wished. In the same moment of realization, the blood that had been at home in my head fell straight to my feet. It took me a few minutes to catch my words, but he seemed relatively unfazed by his condition by then. The only reactions he had to it now were the goose-bumps raising across his bare stomach.
“Wha- Ian, what did you get yourself into this time,” I croaked.
His eyes rolled up and away from me as if he were trying to see his brain.
“The way that you are, this whole ‘not believing until you see it yourself’ thing is highly aggravating and more than a little a waste of time,” he replied.
“How am I supposed to fix this?”
Then he did the oddest thing and laughed. I had to look away, dropping the flap because of how the motion made more of him eek out of the openings.
“How…How are you still alive?” I asked, truly amazed.
“It’s not your job, Reggie. Learn to listen to your own words.”
Thoughts were racing in my head, stuffing my ears so that I only barely caught what he’d ordered. Would I have time to run for help? Maybe I could knock on one of those doors nearby, but would anyone answer? I wasn’t certain if a single window belonged to apartments or if they were all just businesses that were closed down for the night.
I pulled my own jacket off numbly and wadded it up, placing it as much over the wounds as I could. The chilly breeze of the city’s night air on my bare arms was welcomed at that point.
He chuckled coldly and said, “You’re not even near most of the damage.”
“Oh, sorry,” I replied, moving it up gently.
“You ever been stabbed?”
The question took me aback at first, but I guess it made sense if you really looked at where we were.
“My brother accidentally jabbed me in the leg with a pencil hard enough to leave lead under my skin when I was younger…”
“Somehow, I don’t think that really counts.”
Completely side-stepping his distractions, I said, “Can I ask what it was whoever stabbed you with? It looks like you didn’t even try to get away.”
“Really?” he asked quietly, “I thought I put up a pretty good fight in the moment.”
He seemed thoughtful, looking up at the dark sky and blanching by the second.
“Maybe this won’t be so bad out here. I am in the general area of holy ground, I suppose…and maybe this way he can actually see me out in the open as I am, possibly taking pity on my situation. I know you did,” he rolled his chin down to look at me, “a lot of this was a piece of glass, but he had it hidden in his fist at first.”
I swallowed, waiting for more of the explanation and looking anywhere but toward the victim. This was clearly not an accident, definitely provoked. I could feel eyes on me as I searched for a better word than victim. Perhaps it was simply idiot. The English language didn’t go any further than it needed to.
“I knew this guy. It was years ago, in one of those places where they put you when you’re a little too unreasonable, sort of a ‘scramble your brain and see what happens’ establishment. I was such a shitty kid that they even thought I had some sort of mental imbalance. It ended up that I was only there for four months, but I managed to make it worse for everybody in that short amount of time.”
“Oh, yeah. That was where you kept biting people.”
He tilted his head and stared at me with a wondering squint.
“How do you already know about that?”
“I, uh…sort of researched you a while back.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
I sighed, turning to scan the area once more. It was almost as if I were in a survival situation checking to make sure the coast was still clear. The night just kept getting colder, I thought, or maybe it was just the fact that I was no longer wearing layers.
A voice at the back of my mind told me it was for other reasons, though. It was like nature was expecting the end of something real soon.
“Well, if you really want to know, I’ve seen records on everything down to the minute you were born.”
He cringed for me, sucking in his breath to hiss between his teeth. Still, he was trying to hold back a grin that eventually broke free.
“It might make you feel better to know that I didn’t keep any of it…unless you’re just relishing the fact that someone is technically obsessed with you.”
“I didn’t say it,” his grin blossomed
It would’ve been a lot less eerie if he hadn’t had blood in his teeth at the time.
Fighting back the impulse to hit him over the head, I urged, “Getting back to your story…”
His eyelids fell heavy. The whole expression on his face reminded me of that which would belong to someone under the influence of laughing gas. Slowly the muscles in his cheeks relaxed and he rolled his head to stare at the clouding sky once more.
“Anyway, by about the third month I think, I’d noticed this one kid always watching me and never saying anything. He didn’t talk to anybody unless he had to, but there wasn’t a person he would continuously keep focusing on as much as me. I confronted him about it as soon as it started getting to me. It’s sort of chafing knowing you’re doing everything under someone’s eye after a while, you know?”
I nodded, immediately recalling the fact that I was there with him. That I’d left home and had no plans of returning and in all the reasons why, being under scrutiny was the best of them. Somehow, we’d ended up a different kind of the same person.
“I couldn’t really get to him during the day. The orderlies were told to make sure the “high risk” patients were kept as much apart as possible, which meant if you were violent but technically sane you were allowed to be kept with everyone else, just not touching. This big dude was always glued to my side and on really bad days he even had to watch me piss. I think his name might’ve been Eddie, if I remember the right dude.”
“Funny, you would think the name of the person staring at your business would stick with you,” I joked.
“Yeah…he didn’t talk much though, and I think some of them shared uniforms.”
I made a face which he weakly smiled at before adding to what had happened during his unusual stay.
“So, I had to wait until nightfall when all the lights were out and we were supposed to be shut up in our own rooms...”
“But of course, you weren’t.”
“Exactly,” he coughed wetly, “Those places are run by the left-overs of society, usually…at least the majority. It wasn’t hard to find a way out; you just have to know which ones don’t give a shit and what to collect in order to pick a lock.”
Immediately my mind went to the stories his first neighbor had told me. He’d been running around freely, escaping and breaking into wherever he wished, since he was just out of toddler years. It wasn’t surprising that by his teens he would be a practical expert in the art. I sort of wanted to spend time testing him, finding all the dead bolts and heavy-duty locks I could and see if anything would stump.
But it seemed more and more with every second that I didn’t have time for things like that.
“What did you do then, hunt him down and try to suffocate him with your pillow? And this is just revenge?” I asked, gesturing to the mess that was him at that moment.
He gave me a weak but murderous glare and growled, “If you would let me finish, I would tell you.”
I held my hands up in surrender, which washed the expression from his face.
With a gulp - that for a moment had me thinking he might be choking on his blood, that it finally was the end - he finished with, “I’m just gonna sum it up because I’m literally dying like a dog on the ground and I just realized how much time I’m wasting telling you all this about the bastard that cut the life out of me. I made it into his room, threatened him with a shiv, and then he somehow got me to agree to be his dealer when and if we ever got out of the place. Shit gets weird in those buildings.”
“Alright then…can I ask something? A few somethings really?”
He rolled his eyes and nodded his chin down to look, waiting. I suppose he knew I was going to ask anyway.
“One, what exactly is it that you deal?”
“Ah…you don’t want to know that. Besides, you’re just being nosey if you do,” he squinted, face sallow, “Next question.”
I really wanted to know that one, but I was willing to concede. I picked the next one that was gnawing at me the most.
A moth tried to fly into my face, coming from the street lamps above and I swatted it away, asking, “Why do you do this to yourself?”
I thought he might try to smack me with the expression that crossed him, eye wide and very grey in his pale face and mouth turning down a little at the corners. He went to speak, which I knew would be built up to an irritated volume before it had even started.
“Not meaning the death blows there, I meant everything else. Why you sabotage your own life.”
“This again,” he interrupted, sighing and turning away so I could only really see one half of his face.
“No, let me speak my piece,” I paused, expecting him to veto that, “There’s a long list of dumb decisions in your history. I know, and I know it started way before last year, but still. It’s like you hit the end of the track accelerating, deciding to tip off the canyon and crash into every tree, every boulder and outcropping on the way down. Why refuse the best kinds of help for the mediocre ones? Why give yourself half as much as what you deserve? Why people like Anna Reeve, who won’t give two flying fucks about you in a month?”
“Because we come to times like this, when the pain of the end starts to choke you out. Isn’t it better to know that you aren’t leaving anything behind for someone to hurt themselves with?”
“That means you’re leading your whole existence with the plan of never loving or having been loved enough to make someone else feel loss when you die young. You’ve been preparing to erase yourself from the very beginning.”
He blinked, not saying a word. I gave it a moment then untucked my legs, shifting so that I could lie next to him. What was so interesting about the sky tonight that he couldn’t quit looking up?
The stones which I’d expected to be painful on my back were actually somewhat comfortable, almost like a large, massaging mat. I scooched myself over until just our upper arms were touching and the zipper of my jacket draped over his chest scratched at the crease in my elbow.
“I hope you know how utterly and completely depressing that is,” I said.
Again, silence. I couldn’t find his intense interest in the starless sky above. It had obviously been a semi-cloudy day that turned into an even cloudier night. Rain might possibly return. It was just another reason for it to get even colder out here. I felt sort of ashamed that I wouldn’t mind having my jacket back, not that I was about to steal it. It was soaked through with blood anyway. It felt like my hair was being ground into the masonry beneath me as I glanced over at Ian. He had a nice profile which I’d never noticed before. The kind that if I could draw, I would have made him pose for it, but I’d never been able to do more than doodle.
“You pretty much failed at that, in the end,” I studied the slight turn-up of his nose, thinking out loud, “Sure, there are tons of people who won’t remember how they experienced you. The problem is that you’ve already let a little bit of how you were meant to be slip through the cracks. I visited some of them, those other humans that will inevitably feel some guilt or just plain sadness at you being gone. We’ll go to your funeral and we’ll deal with it in our own ways, thinking we could have steered you in a different direction, a healthier direction…I thought a long time ago I would be the person to know what would fix you. I should have paid attention. You can’t save someone who’s already given up. You taught me that.”
“I never intended it,” he spoke up with his voice all tight.
I reached over with my thumb and grabbed one of the drops running down the side of his face into his hair.
Quietly I said, “Maybe it’s time that we all finally let go.”
He looked very young and afraid for once with tears twisting his expression. It was the way I expected him to look in the police report I’d dug up months ago, his eleven-year-old eyes so angry for a situation that should have scared him. Still, lying very still next to me and getting colder all the time, he wouldn’t take his eyes off the point above.
It was strange but I didn’t move away. I stayed watching him sort through all his thoughts that were probably quite painful. I think most people would do what I did next out of an immense desire to help their loved one release whatever they were suffering from.
But this was not a loved one. This was Ian…and I was more curious than anything.
I leaned over so that my head rested enough on his that I could speak the facts, the simple truth, in his ear.
“People cared about you, Ian Wright, and you have no time left to change that.”
I didn’t see it. He went without me and that was okay.
Untitled
I close my laptop, thinking over these pages of a story that only I ever really knew about. The chair has made my butt completely numb and the cat has been trying for about three minutes to get my attention by rubbing her yellow fur against my ankles.
I started to realize that near the end. No one would ever know what we talked about back then or why it meant so much, especially for a person like him. They wouldn’t hear about his last conversations in the paper, as most of the wrongs in his life had been put into them. People would see, because of this, that he’d finally been afraid of something in the end after a whole existence of being sure he wanted to be angry and die young.
I’d like to say that knowing him for that short period of time was necessary and changed my life for the better, but I’m not that sort of person. Telling it like it is, it hurt. I wanted the release as much as he had. It just took me a little longer to find it.
The sun is setting. I think I might go for a walk.
